Cultural Council - Regular Meeting

Yes, now that we are recording, let us try to, Juliana, can you do your motion again for the minutes?

You're on mute. Juliana, you're on mute.

Sorry, I didn't know how to work my phone either. Motion to approve the minutes.

I'll second it.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

All right. I see Kim is coming in now. Hello, Kim. Hi. Thank you. Coming in hot. Coming in hot. Boom. Last one, baby. I know.

I miss you already, girls.

And I'll keep my eye on this attendance thing, too, to see if I promote people. So we were just talking about the upcoming events tomorrow. Kathy is going to be making it to Creek Alley, a tribute to American folk music and 1960s folk rock. Um, and then, yeah, it sounds like it's going to be a blast. And then acting community course has their spring pops concert movie night, the 12th and 13th. And then this weekend and next weekend, the, uh, child's play theater in Acton has the great race, the story of the Chinese Zodiac.

Oh, so those are the three upcoming things.

And then I think the only things that are really left is like the thing for, um, you know, summer reading and then ongoing, you know, things that are kind of ongoing.

are all just happening.

And we have one in the fall, which is the one for the Russell Street and Shaker Lane Cultural Fair. I think it's like food trucks or something. That's for like September. So we won't, we'll see that in probably our August meeting. Um, so next up is, as we mentioned, it is Kim and Jen's last meetings with us. So I think, uh, just to have it on record, the council, I think speak for everyone. When we say we want to express our gratitude to both of you for your dedicated service and all of your valuable contributions during your term, apostrophe S for those who have multiple terms, uh, on the cultural council and, um, extending you our best wishes and thanks that um you're continuing your service probably elsewhere and don't be strangers if you have any good cultural ideas send it to us anyways thank you and if you know anybody both of us around yes yes oh yeah i mean you guys are not uh not the type to stay inside the house and not be involved so i'm sure we'll see you we'll be around um next was just sort of this fyi about this uh thing from greg terralis our um liaison that he's having on monday there's this local fundraising check-in zoom that he's doing he had sent an email back on april 29th and i think melissa re-shared it more recently uh we were not one of the councils that was like specifically asked to come to the meeting you know he had some that he wanted to report out but we weren't on that list so it's there I think just as an FYI, if people wanted to go and see, I don't know if Ray was planning on going, like it's sort of, it's like a financial check-in.

So I don't know if Ray was planning on going or not, but I just put it in there as sort of a like carry over old business FYI situation, I guess.

Speaking of finding people in the wild, slightly off topic, but I got to see Ray out in the wild at the financial literacy fair at the high school a couple of weeks ago. And that was nice to see a fellow volunteer somewhere else doing something completely different. And it was nice to see him.

Yeah. Yes, it is good to see each other out and about.

I saw several of you and people at the middle school play. which was awesome. And you know, Ray's daughters were at my daughter and we saw a lot of you there. So thanks for the support always. It was wonderful. It was so good. I love that they had, you know, it was written by a high school junior and I just love that. And it was funny.

It was so pleasantly surprised. Cause I mean, knowing that a kid wrote it cause he's so young, my expectations were not, I loved it. I laughed. I loved everything that the kids did. Great.

They did. They did. So they're, they're all waiting with bated breath for the announcement of what the musical is going to be in the fall. They still haven't announced it yet.

So that's kind of a big thing. Yeah. It should be good.

I don't think Ray said he didn't need a treasurer's report. There really wasn't much to report. We only have three outstanding packets that people haven't turned in at all, which is amazing. Like awesome.

And so have you got in your reimbursement Kiki? Cause I haven't, but I'm getting, I haven't processed. Okay, good. I know.

Yeah. I know that he did send it, but I'm sure it's just, yeah, it seems like it takes like the full six to eight weeks to get that stuff going. Okay. Yeah. So, and I have had a couple of inquiries just on the email of people who were looking for checks and kudos to Ray, if he sees this recording for his diligent entries of like the dates and stuff. So I was able to say to them, according to our records, the town sent you a check on this date. So let me know, you know, here's who you can contact if you don't have it, but like our part's over, you know? So, yeah, so we only have three left. Like I said, one of them is not until the fall, so I'm thinking maybe they're just waiting. I did send them an email just to say, hey, you don't have to wait. Like, you can submit it now and get your paperwork at least going. So that's great for us. So we shouldn't have a ton of that kind of thing. I mean, they have until, I think, February before it would, you know, roll back anyway. So I think we're in really good shape with that. Yeah, and I did see that the reimbursements did go to the town. So that part is... in process. And then I, the Little Town and Bloom spreadsheet, I did update it. So we did spend less than we had budgeted. So that's great. So we've got a little leftover cushion in there.

I have a few stems and I picked up one tipped over sign and stuck it in my car and fixed it. So I'll replay, I'll return that to Ray at the same time as the stems.

Oh, awesome.

Amazing. Do you feel like you're doing like a jig in your space? You have like tons of extra room now?

If you ask my boys, they're like, what is happening here? If any of you saw my Instagram post, I don't have a dining table because it's at a client's house. Oh, no. And so furniture just comes and goes here. And often I have far more than I need. And then occasionally what we really do need is missing. Okay.

They get their plates like, where are we sitting? I was like, Mom! Totally fine. Totally fine.

Suck it up, kids. It's paying the bills.

That's right. Welcome to our life. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, so I think our kind of biggest discussion here is number six, which is the review and reconsideration of the mission statement and maybe a discussion of any revisions. I know, Juliana, you were passionate about this as well. If I can figure out how to share my screen here, I will share. I read what you shared. Um, yeah. And so I, I kind of went online when I was on, I was in there doing something else and I thought, oh, I should see what other people have, you know, why not? Uh, we don't need to reinvent the wheel. Right. And, um, and so I was thinking, oh, we should, oh, here it is. Okay. I did figure it out and do it.

All right. I don't know if you can see that.

yeah okay great so these are just some of the local um ones that i just you know just our our area and then um so these were their mission statements right which is sort of what they just have like as their information session and then there was also the secondary uh piece which We don't need to address really until August, which is the like the procedures and policies document, which historically we have used sort of the information we got from our community serving to sort of touch on the topics but I did send out the one from Chelmsford which I did kind of like I'm sorry there's noise which I did sort of like in the way that they sort of broke it down saying like oh we're giving priority to things from Chelmsford and even where they said you know things won't all like everything wouldn't be totally funded just to kind of put that FYI out there I kind of liked so I don't know if anybody wants to start the discussion or have conversation about it

I mean, we talked about this a little bit already, so Kiki, you know kind of where I'm coming from with this. Like, I really liked what Chomsky did, too. I did not like that they said nothing more than $3,500 or whatever that particular item was, simply because I found that in any sort of application, you know, and a grant application, a response to proposals, whatever it is, if you give people a number, it changes how they're thinking about things. So my preference would be to not put a number like that anywhere. The other thing I wondered, which I hadn't thought about before, but do we need, like, does this need broader approval or is this just our decision as a council?

You know, that's a great question. I don't know. I think that I know on the actual MCC website, we can just change that. I think, you know, on the town website. But I don't think that this is anything that is had been voted on previously. We can ask Diane Corey about that. But I don't think unless we were really changing. you know, something dramatic. And I know that the policies and procedures, we can just vote on ourselves and put forward, because that's what we've typically done before. But I'm not 100% sure about the actual mission statement. Because if you look at these, they all seem sort of like generic, similar to ours, right? Where it's just, you know, members are appointed or it's a volunteer community whatever so i think we're sort of talking about two different things like one is the mission statement yes yeah and then two is the the policies and procedures piece and um so i'm gonna try and see i'm using my ipad so i can't always get everything but let me see if i can pull up our actual the one that we have now you know our current um i will also say that i think it's well worth just even if it's minor tweaks updating Yeah, I agree. I know like Juliana had talked about the language, you know, that it was said select men and that doesn't match what the town uses, right? Is that what you were saying?

Yeah, it's select board and the town uses, sorry, it's select men and the town uses select board because there is a lady.

Yeah, so, I mean, even just basic stuff like that, we should probably be at least matching. You know what I mean? Yeah. Okay, here we go.

Here's our page. So let me try and share this. Let me get back to our Zoom. Sorry, I'm just talking to myself.

We're all listening.

And, of course, my iPad's decided to be like, oh, let's do something strange and make it really small. Okay, share... Oh, okay. I don't use the iPad that much, to be honest with you. So I'm kind of like, I'm surprised at least how different it is. You can't just click on an open window. You have to like paste in the URL.

Okay. Website URL. And share. Let's see.

Here we go. So that's our current mission statement. So I don't know if you want to go about just having conversation right now, or you want me to live type it over here as we make changes, or what people's thoughts are beyond the changing of the language instead of saying Board of Selectmen to match.

I'm sorry, Kiki, because I'm in my phone and I don't have my glasses. I cannot read it. Can you can you read it? Oh, sure.

Thank you. Yeah. So it says the Littleton Cultural Council, whose members are appointed by the Board of Selectmen, supports community cultural projects through its grant program. Funds are received from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, whose mission is, quote, to promote excellence, access, education and diversity in the arts, humanities and interpretive sciences. in order to improve the quality of life for all Massachusetts residents and to contribute to the economic vitality of our communities.

So I think my biggest concern with this is and has been that it doesn't say what our mission is, right? Right, yeah. It only says what the cultural councils, the Massachusetts cultural councils brought our mission is. I think we need at least one sentence that talks about Littleton?

Right. So yeah, I would start by changing the select men for sure. And then I agree it would be great to add something more specific.

If you'd like, I'm happy to draft like a sentence or two and then just circulate it around everyone and we can kind of go back and forth over edits.

Yeah. That was, I was going to suggest, does anybody want to take this on as their little, their little tiny project?

I'm happy to be a starting point with the understanding that whatever I send out will not be the end point.

Yeah. Oh, that sounds great. Awesome. Thank you. And I wonder, just to get you going, Sarah, I wonder if it's necessary to, like, if we want to do it more local, right? Do we really need the mission of the big... council from Massachusetts maybe we because you don't want this mission to be super long right right so I maybe if we really want to focus in something local I would scratch it that's my advice but you whatever you bring out will be great I'm sure and we can tweak it I like that idea too because we want the focus to be Littleton that being said I'm not entirely sure whether that's required But we can be, I mean, it can be, it's a part of the Massachusetts Cultural Council and you put the link, right? Like you, like others, other towns do. So if people are interested in knowing what the mission of that thing is, then you click, right? But this is just Littleton. Yeah, it seems like that's the way we can check. Check. Yes, it is included, but not literally.

Yeah, it doesn't seem like there's any requirements here because as you look at these others, you know, they don't, a lot of them don't even mention that they're part of it. You know, it's very generic. It's basically just, you know, how is it appointed? You know, are you volunteers or are you appointed? I think most are the same. And then just a generic kind of, you know. What do we do? But I like Chumsford. I feel like I'm picking on them. But how it does say, you know, in projects that serve Chumsford and the surrounding communities, you know, that we're sort of bringing it a little more local. That's how that's what I feel, too.

Yeah, perfect.

So I don't I don't remember ever seeing anything about a requirement in your mission statement to connect with a cultural account, the Massachusetts Cultural Council. But I'll I'll touch base with Greg and just make sure that we get it right. Yeah.

And even if you go on to that MCC, they have that little like LCC toolbox. And there's a lot of FAQs in there. So there might even the answer might even be in that, too.

Good point. So I will I will try to have a starting point for everybody this week.

Great. Thank you. Here, I'll share the agenda now that I figured out how to do this.

Maybe you can even do a percentage. You know, we focus on Littleton first. And when the money goes out, we like all of the rest of you, but first Littleton. Yeah.

Yeah, and I do think that we should put that into our policies and procedures, which I think we have historically talked about that more in our August meeting. And so I think that that's a good point to make sure that we're kind of being clear about that, because I think that's what people are looking at when they're submitting an application, you know? And I think we could probably tweak that to really get a little more specific and talk about, you know, our other sort of requirements with the venue and all that sort of stuff.

And the fact that they need to include, you know, remember we said that if they didn't have like a support letter from wherever the venue was, like if, because that way it's easier to eliminate, you know, the extras that don't, don't have the requirements.

Yeah, and I think it also sets people up more for a successful application because we're being really intentional about what we're sort of saying.

We want you to do it right so that you can consider it.

Yes, that is very much it. We want to make sure that you know how to do this.

Exactly, yeah.

You get it right and we can say, yes, bring your art here.

Yeah.

I can do like a real rough cut on some of that with kind of the initial mission statement rewrite. So just to start the conversation more than to finalize that part, but so we can start thinking about things like, I don't know, how we word things. And we would also like to support arts nearby. And Kim, can you tell me a little bit more about what you were thinking about the percentage comments?

I didn't have a percentage in my mind, but thinking, you know, we want to make sure that a greater quantity of local money goes towards our local endeavors.

I would use the word prioritize because we don't know, right? Because we don't know what the applications would be. And I absolutely agree that we will always put Littleton first. But if we just say prioritize, then that means if you're from a different town, then you're not in our priority, but we will still look at you, right? And if you are at Littleton, come, show up, ask for it, right? Because we are seeing you first or something like that, right? So just... Using the word priority, I think, will cover that and make it clear.

Yeah, that makes sense to me, too.

And during the application process, they're going to see who we have funded in the past. So it isn't like it's only Littleton. So I think that's perfectly fine, right? It shows yes over here and also we're not terrible.

Yeah.

Yeah, thank you. And Sarah, I think it's great if you want to do both, but if anybody else is feeling like they want to jump into that, feel free to speak up too so we can spread the wealth, especially as some of us speed toward our last year here.

Well, and just to be clear, I really am picturing anything I send out as very much a starting point that I hope everyone else will have a significant amount of input into.

I don't know if everybody saw the one from Chelmsford, but I thought that I did enjoy there. And I can send you, I know that I have it, the language that we had used in the past that sort of had our little bullet points. But I do think we could, you know, really expand upon it and take this opportunity to sort of get it out. Really clear, because I think maybe in the past we had sort of been kind of vague, maybe thinking purposefully so that people would would apply. And I think maybe that was back in the days when we were maybe not getting as many applications. But I feel like those days are gone. So this is for anybody who didn't see it. And I agree with what you said, Sarah, like, I don't love the idea of putting no applicant shall receive more than X amount. You know, they also I think have, they had like, I think, 11,000 to give out. And, you know, so they have like twice what we have. Oh, 20, you know, so they, you know, are maybe doing it in that regard. But but I did like how it was very like Chelmsford focus, but it wasn't too much. You know, I saw I think it was Westford had like it was like seven or eight paragraphs. It was like insane. I was kind of like, who's reading all of this, you know? So I think, you know, I like this idea of sort of, you know, show clear evidence that you're benefiting residents, show additional sources of collaboration. And I do think it's important for us to put maybe partially funded. That way people have a good, like, expectation coming in. You know, that if you're asking for $1,000, you're probably not going to get the $1,000. Not to say you wouldn't, you know, but.

Agreed. I'm just typing what we've talked about. Letters of support. Okay. So yeah, that was a good one.

I thought to sort of look at.

So let me get back to our agenda.

I agree. I like that one. It's clean. It's short enough that it's easy to go over every point and still retain it all. So I'll do something similar for us, at least in terms of scope. Awesome.

Thank you, Sarah. Thank you.

Just a starting point, open for lots and lots of discussion.

And then the only thing left is our FY27 grant cycle planning. Believe it or not, it will be here before you know it. So it hasn't said the deadline yet, but it's typically like August 28th is when we have to have those priorities and procedures in. And we have historically used the... community survey as our sort of jumping off point. So we have just done like a Google form, you know, through our, our, our Gmail or whatever, our, you know, our, our Google drive and just sort of ask generic questions, ask people to rank them. That's kind of what we've done with our, with the third Thursdays where we have used that table, not only just to, for people to see, you know, like who we are, but also to try and get parents to fill that out while their kid is making a sun catcher, et cetera. I haven't heard if they're doing third Thursdays. I don't know if anybody else has any information. I know that.

I haven't heard. I've been looking. I don't have any information. I know Parks and Rec. Is it Parks and Rec?

Parks and Rec, yeah. And I know I had seen like an announcement of, oh, I don't have my video on.

Jesus.

Oh, here I am. That they have been, I know that, you know, Kaz obviously left and now Tim has left. He's over in Acton now as a director of their Parks and Rec. So I know, I don't know if they're hiring, but I had seen some kind of a post that said when they canceled the touch a truck, you know, that they were sort of focusing with their personnel shifts that they were just trying to get up and running for the summer. So a little piece of wonder is if they're not doing that. I can reach out.

I have a friend who's at the, like she's in Parks and Rec, so I can reach out to her and ask if they're doing this Thursdays.

Yeah, that would be great. Or even if they're doing anything over the summer that we could, you know, tag ourselves into a little bit just to get that survey out there. But also, you know, to bring art to the community.

Well, and I think this goes right back to like when we when I had trouble reaching them about Little Titan Bloom, right? Like Rachel is also gone. So yeah, that's right. Relatively small organization. That's a lot of turnover.

Yeah. Yeah. I hadn't even realized that Tim had left until I knew Rachel had, but I hadn't realized that Tim had left until I actually, somebody reached out to me from Acton about their 4th of July celebration. Cause they, they, I'm going to sing the national anthem there and God bless America. And they were like, Oh, our colleague Tim knows you. And I was like, wait a minute. Tim's not in Littleton anymore. I was like, that's probably why he didn't call me back about the soccer thing either. Because I just had his work cell phone number, which probably is like no one's even looking at. But anyway, yeah, so I don't know. So I don't know what's going to happen there. But yeah, that'd be great, Juliana, if you have a contact there and you can get us a little intel. Yeah, absolutely.

I was going to go there tomorrow because I've been dealing with Nate over a parking pass and stuff for Long Lake.

Oh, yeah, I got to do that too.

I can do it in person, see what he knows.

I texted my friend, so I'm sure she'll come back. I know there's a Parks and Rec meeting right now, so she might not see my text, but she'll respond. So I'll let you guys know. Yeah, let us know.

And if these things work out, I can reach out to Alicia, too, and see if I can... get her ear for a couple of minutes.

Would that be something you can do at the 4th of July thing somehow?

Well, usually third Thursdays happens June, July, and August. So I feel like, um, that's part of why I feel like we would have heard something if they were doing it, but they have canceled. They have not done the one in June before, just because of like the last day of school, which I think is on the third Thursday this year. So, um, they, I know it's the 18th. I'm pretty sure it's the 18th. Yeah. Yeah. That's, um, yeah, which is, which is the, yeah, which is the third Thursday. So I don't know if they wouldn't do it and they're going to do it in July or what, but, um, Yeah, or if there's anything that they're doing that maybe is a community thing. But segueing into that is our community service survey for FY27. And so for the last three years, I've just done that. But I'm happy to if anybody wants to, you know, take on something and have. something to do, you know, feel free to I'm happy to pass it on. I don't have to own it. Basically, it's pretty simple. I take last year's Google form, I hit duplicate form. And then we look at it and sort of just, you know, change up some of the questions because I mean, it's pretty generic. It's about, you know, what kinds of art do you want to see? What kinds of focus? And it's a lot of open ended questions, because we're really trying to get people to give us their information. So I try not to have too many you know, clickings. I think right now it's a little too long, like it has too many that scrolls across. Somebody was telling me when you use an iPad, but I was looking on your computer. So that's, that's something usually we put out like in July. So if you, in the next couple of weeks, unless someone is burning right now to do it and wants to raise their hand. But if you think about that, you want to do something, like I said, it's pretty low key. You just need to make the form. And then when it closes, download the spreadsheet and send it to us. So yeah, It's pretty low key. I'm happy to continue doing it, but if anybody has a burning desire to do it, let me know.

I would say that's worth just a broader email too. Maybe there are people that couldn't be here today that'd be interested.

Yeah, absolutely. And did all the new people join up or?

Yeah, so I'll put that under other business because when I had to submit this agenda, like to get us legal, I hadn't heard back from the town yet, but I'll segue into that now. So I did finally hear back about the application. So I think just to refresh everyone's memory at the end of the last meeting, We had sort of communicated to those new people that they should not fill out the application because at that point, it was still this like first come first serve auto approved situation. And we had talked about wanting to, you know, actually see the applications and have conversation. And so I didn't want to encourage people to fill it out and then get us into this pickle where suddenly these people had got... Because, I mean, that's happened before where, in the time that I've been on the council, where suddenly someone would just come to the meeting and be like, oh, yeah, I was sworn in at the select board. And we were like, oh, never... That's the first we're hearing about it. Well, beyond the new, welcome. So I didn't want to have that happen, you know, and also because people who are reapplying needed to have time because I also was worried about that, that if six people applied before, let's say, Melissa or Sarah or anybody put theirs in, now the board is full, right? So anyway, I did hear back from Diane Corey, like on, it was after the agenda had to be printed. So She has started sending the application to an applicant. And then I ended up sending an email to everyone who came to the meeting. And then there were some people who had expressed interest but couldn't come to the meeting. And so I sent them a pretty detailed email that was like, here's the link. Here's this. Here's that. And there was also another person who reached out organically that hadn't come to the meeting and must have seen some residual post from back when we were posting about it. who was looking for the application and said that she had filled it out. So hopefully Diane will just forward them to us. And I think... we'll just, I don't know. I mean, I guess that's another conversation we need to talk about. Like, what are we doing with them? Cause we've never had this experience where we've had more openings. Well, I don't know. Right. Because we don't know if they're going to actually apply or not. So we did have the one application from Jenna lamb who was here on the meeting. I think, I think it might be Jane.

Yes.

Jane. Oh, is it Jane? Yes.

But then she has a, she has a background in arts and music.

Yes. But Diane did let me know that she applied for five different boards at the same time. And so I don't know that she's going to get on another one or if that even factors into the decision. So I don't know if she's just trying to look at to get involved or whatever. I haven't actually clicked on the application.

I also kind of wonder if that was intentional because like the forum is not as straightforward as it could be.

Right. True. Yeah. And it is one application for every open position. But you do have to click on the ones you're interested in. So, yeah. So I don't know, because we just got ours. And so she had sent others. But yeah, so that's another just a, I mean, Diane was kind of like, oh, you just make sure, just FYI. And so I don't know what that means.

So she lives, I'm going to go with across the street from Judy, but very nearby. Yeah.

So I can ask Judy to like check in with- I remember her saying that.

Yeah, yeah. So we can have Judy like pick her brain and see, is she particularly interested in this or is this just like one of the many things that might work and where her priorities are?

Yeah. And there's no, I mean, it's not to say you can't be on multiple boards, of course, but yeah. So we'll see. I think, you know, I, like I said, I just sent that email out the day I heard that from Diane, which I think was on two, it was either Tuesday or Wednesday.

I'd have to look, but very recently.

So, you know, we'll give these people a chance to actually fill out the application. And so as we get them, I think they come in like an email, you know? And so we can just score, I can just score them. Yeah. And we can look at that. I do think we're probably going to have to have some kind of a conversation if we do end up, I don't know if the best course of action is to say like, let's have a, a date, you know, where we say like, okay, whatever application, I mean, maybe by the next meeting. Right. But, um, Which is, I mean, we should still have quorum because we're really only, because you guys are re-upping, so we're only down two. So if we have everybody who's able to come in July, we could have that conversation and say, let's see what we have on that July meeting.

And that being said, this is probably a conversation that would be more appropriate in executive committee rather than...

Right. Yeah, exactly. So I think we'll have to see. Because the other thing is, you know, people can come to me and we have to actually fill out the application, right? So we may only get one application that might be a moot point, right? So, yeah, so that's kind of where we are with that. But at least now we're not on the auto approval, which is good, because I think that, you know, I think it's always worthwhile to see the application before we're just automatically approving it or that we don't even know about it, you know?

Agreed.

Thank you for reaching out to Diane to make that happen, Kiki.

Oh, yeah, no problem.

Yeah, I just kept getting worked by all and saying, following up about this again.

Yes, like the follow up is huge because like, honestly, I had completely forgotten. And we talk every month or more, and I still couldn't remember to get the application in. So I'm glad you reached out.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, so that's it for the official agenda. I don't know if people have anything else to discuss, thoughts?

I don't know if this is something I should say where we're taping, but if you find people that you think would be better qualified than me being on for another three years, I am perfectly fine with that. and I can still help out at events and things like that. But where you have more people and you, you know, fill the board with what's going to be the best fit for everybody.

I'm not going anywhere that I know of.

What? You can't get away from us that easy, Kathy.

Yeah, well, and I think that, like, thinking about that and saying things like that are exactly why you should stay. Okay.

Plus, as my, as my granny used to say, you know, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, right? We don't, we really only have one actual application.

Well, I put mine in and then I got something from town hall, but I did it. I did get yours. Yeah. So a letter or something. Yeah.

Yeah, everybody who is re-upping is all in, the three of you. So just brand new. So that means we would just have two to fill because we were sort of, you know, in flux about how many open positions we even had. So it looks like officially we will have two open positions to fill starting, I guess it would be July 1st, technically. Okay. So, yeah, I think we could see what comes in. Yeah, I'll definitely forward Jane's application so people can look at that one because that's the first one that's come in. I didn't hear back now. I'm saying this out loud. I didn't hear back from her about that woman, Maria, who had put in the application back in June. I think it was like in September when we didn't actually have an opening. My question was sort of like, is her application still sitting there? Like, or does it expire? Like, does she have to do another one? And so, yeah, I didn't think about that, but she's out there too, which I kind of feel like she came to a meeting. She seemed really enthusiastic. So, and she does technically have an application out there. So I think if she's still interested, it's worth at least reaching out to her to see.

And that could be, that might be our two.

I don't know. Yeah. Oh, it is. It's a great problem to have. I was like, Oh, we've never faced this before.

Amazing. And, and if, if those are our two, we can always tell the other people that they can still be involved. Like they don't have to be official council members to meetings come to their Thursdays. If it's still a thing like that kind of stuff.

Right. Totally. I agree.

Paint flowers. Butterflies.

Right. Reach out to organizations that you know, yeah.

My four-year-old granddaughter came with me and was helping when we were pulling them out of the ground. She was carrying them to Ray's car.

I love that.

That's awesome. Community service. Getting her ready to be a volunteer.

Yeah, there you go. I know I've voluntold my daughter as well several times over the years.

Yeah. Can I say something?

I'm just going to miss you all so terribly.

I know, Kim, you've been on the watch for six years, right? Or seven?

However long until they kicked me off, yes.

It will definitely be missed, Kim.

Absolutely. I'm still doing coffee with Kim every Wednesday morning from 8.30 to 10. So if anybody wants to see me, you can usually check me out. And it's turned into a fascinating morning ritual. Some days I... Maybe once every quarter I'm there by myself. Ninety percent of the time, two, three, five people show up and they all needed to meet each other and didn't know that till they got there. That's awesome. It is that kind of a magnetic little room.

Tomorrow is actually what they call the women's breakfast. And that's like. eight to whatever. So you may get people hanging around after that.

Nice. There you go. Are you, it's always at the, at the Shattuck street building.

I do Wednesday morning at Kimball's and then Thursday morning at Shattuck.

Okay. Yep. Wednesday at Kimball's Thursday.

See Kim.

Yeah. Kim at Kimball's.

It's interesting because people then know that that's where I'm going to be. And instead of trying to calculate all of our schedules, it's like, oh, wait, I'll just go then. I'll just go walk over and see her. That's amazing.

My son's working at Kimball's now at the seafood shack in the backside.

give him a high yeah sometimes he's there in the morning begrudgingly i was i was just there clients took me out to dinner the other night they said you and your son have worked so hard we're going to feed you and sweat was pouring off both of us and we were starving we'd been there for like six hours we're like yes and ice cream at the end yeah exactly oh my gosh Exactly. Both of us were in heaven. We're like, okay, that was totally worth it.

That's amazing.

And Reverend Jen, we're going to have to see you when you're doing comedy and see you out in the wild doing something other than this.

Yeah. Hopefully I'll be around. I know. Keep sending us your stuff and we can at least promote it and come and see you.

Yeah, I was bummed that the parade got canceled because I was going to come get my delicious breakfast sandwich. I was like, man.

Breakfast sandwiches, man. Yeah, they were always delicious.

Are you still eating breakfast sandwiches for breakfast, lunch, and dinner?

No, we gave away all the stuff.

Yeah. That was good, at least.

That was good, at least.

All right, well, that's the end of our formal agenda.

Yeah, once again, just a massive thank you to Kim and Jen, and we're definitely going to miss you.

And, you know, remember us in your thoughts. Speak kindly of us to others.

I just brought some new people into town, and I said, you have to get on several things. Meet the people, because that's what makes town nice. I didn't mean to interrupt you, Jen. Yeah.

It's true. The gift. Well, I'll see you. Not this weekend. I'll be in New York.

Good to see you around, Kathy. Sounds good.

See you, ladies.

Thank you, everyone. Does anyone want to make a motion to close the meeting? I can make a motion. Yes. Go ahead, Jen. So I'll make a motion to adjourn the meeting. Yes, last motion. Thank you for your final service. And we're out. And you're out.

Bye, everybody. Good night.