Beautify Londonderry - Regular Meeting

call a meeting to order. 7 o'clock in the evening. Um, uh, Beth, I'm going to ask you to vote on one of our Okay. Um, one in Wonderful. Wonderful. Um, we have no public hearing for public comment, so we'll move on from public comment. Um the next on the agenda is approval of the March meeting minutes which John sent out um a little bit ago. And there was one I think you had said that there was one.

Yeah. On the upper left on the front page it says 6 o'clock start time and it was 7 o'clock. Okay. 7 o'clock. Yep. Other than Oh, and then in there and then right here 6 pm. Yeah. the two spots in the header. It's much appreciated that you guys change that because it really makes a difference for us. Happy to oblige. Make a motion to approve the minutes. Excellent. Thank you, Beth. I second. Excellent. Thank you, John. Um, all in favor of approval of our March meeting minutes,

I And they are approved. Excellent. Um, so our account update, I don't um have full numbers from Sarah. She is getting she's going to get them to me tomorrow um because unfortunately I asked her too late. Um, however, our our purchases um our purchases have been or our um uh our purchases that were intended have been just the gloves, the shirts and vests, um the hats, and um signs, which we'll talk about in a minute. Um and so that will bring us down quite a bit. Um assuming assuming all of the all of the signs go through as we had talked about our last meeting, although that might not be the case as we'll talk about in a little bit. But um that does bring us down very close to um you know like $2,000 in our account. So we are we are getting very close to um you know we still have money but um we want to start building back up and so the rest of this meeting is is or bulk of this meeting will be dedicated to our fundraising um getting that going. Um, so I will have that number out the numbers out for you guys um by tomorrow when Sarah when Sarah gets this to us. But again, the signs haven't come out yet. So, I mean, a lot of that bulk hasn't come out yet anyway.

And the signs will come out in two increments because we did a $5,000 deposit and then they'll be done with the signs. When they're done with the signs, that'll be additional and then we'll talk about the final Yeah. what we think it's going to be.

Excellent. Um, okay. So, some updates. Um, just a quick update on the um, April 11th cleanup, which um, I think you guys all saw um, the email that I sent out. Um, and I did a couple posts on social media. Um, but we, you know, we had our best turnout that we've had in a really long time. Um, and I'm just so thankful for for, you know, the weather we had. But I I do think that people are starting to really pay attention to um what is needed in our in our town. So I think I think it was really it was really excellent. Um by the count I don't think I got the bags that you had the last ones that you had sent in, John. So we're probably at like 116 for the number of bags that have been picked up at this point in time. Um which is which is excellent. We've hit some of the major roads that we know are, you know, heavy hitters, but there's still, you know, there's still lots to do.

There's still plenty of stuff also. There's still lots to do. Um, and we do have, um, so, for example, we have, um, the women's club are planning to go out in a few weeks in the second week of May, I believe. We have, um, the, um, the Lion, the Blue Lions Lions cheerleaders. Yeah. Blue Lions cheerleader club is going to go out on the 3rd of May. Um, we still have the football players, the football team in June. Um, so we definitely still have a few groups and there there I've got quite a few people reaching out to to, you know, to to know how they can help.

You know what I think really helped us because you you did your your your your write up which was great and then the followups in the what is it called? Around town. Around the town. Yep. Each each week there was that in there and I think that helped. Yeah. Good. because it keeps it out before people and if anybody pays any attention to that maybe they did. Yeah. And it was there. The initial article and the follow-ups uh I think maybe that made the difference. Good. And John, we uh because we moved it off of the school vacation period.

Um one of the things that happened is we gave away all of your new t-shirts except for two. We have two left. How did you like them? Did they were fine. They were fine. Good color. Yep. They were great. Um, but that that's because we had little kids. We had a lot of Well, little kids. We had kids that came. So, we like Cub Scouts all cub scouts. There was like 20 of them. Um, and then there were a bunch of other little kids, too. So, at some point next year, we'll have to get more t-shirts.

As as I um told you, the uh the vests, they didn't make that kind of vest anymore. They were different. They more ventilated and they were more expensive, but he g he gave us at the same price as the old ones. I like the new vest. I thought they were great. I I'll tell you a couple things. One is I've washed them now twice and they they're holding up in the wash, which is Okay, good. That's like

But but beyond that, they're lighter and they're easier to fold up and and there's all kinds of pluses to them. So, we'll see how they hold up. The the only thing I'm a little concerned about is there on the tag it says even though I do them in cold water with a mild detergent, but it says good for 25 washes. So, we'll have to see what happens. That's quite a few washes. Well, it is, but but you know what? Every time they come back, Yeah. they get washed. So, because we don't want to have anybody complain about So, when in the DIY kits, do they get rewashed? Is just the end of the season? Huh? the end of the season to get washed. Oh, okay. I just didn't

Which makes sense. I think that's a great I just washed them all and set them both. They're both back out now. Okay. Now, did did you have the caps available for the Yes. They were there, but it was way too was it was too busy. Right. Right. We didn't we didn't have um we weren't really set up to um to sell um the caps. So So I think learning maybe next year we have a separate table with some hustster standing behind a tree to sell the hats. Okay. I don't know who that's going to be. Yeah. Yeah. But for

who we have on this committee with that expertise has a marketing background something somebody that's part convince kind of needed in that focal point you know you know another thing and I learned something from it was the old home day presentation and you had all these samples and you asked people the questions you know which one of these can be recycled And I think that went very well. And I learned a few things myself out of that one. So, thank you so much for that. Yeah. Like I learned that I can't throw my creamer to be recycled. Yeah. I was like, "Huh, didn't know that before."

Um, it's good. We would have sold one or two hats if we had our Venmo. Yes, we did. Okay. So, we got to get What was that? the the Venmo the BL uh Venmo isn't is got some kind of a bug in it and we just haven't got to that yet. Venmo or PayPal or whatever it is working so we can't take cash on the spot. So, yeah. Oh, we can't. Well, we shouldn't. I mean, no. You know, it's very frugal. No, we are. So, we certainly have to get that fixed before we do the um it the concerts on the Commons or any of the other things that we might do. So,

but um but I think I think John it was I'll tell you what from 9ish till 10:30 quarter of 11 it was Bonzo. That's unusual because it usually is the first half hour. Yep. And we had people coming back to get their bags. Yes. still going back out to their area. So, I mean, it was slamming. So, it was the three of us plus I just Deb Paul came and came and Karen came too. And everybody was busy. So, it was good. It was good. So, that's nice. Yep. Um the other thing it was a success like that.

So, in terms of groups, we had some Cub Scouts there and we had uh we had lacrosse. Lacrosse, girls lacrosse. Okay. Oh, nice. Um, so boys lacrosse. Boys lacrosse. Boys lacrosse. Oh, I'm sorry. You're right. I'm thinking my daughter played girls lacrosse over the weekend. Um, so, uh, I think we have to get a put together a list. I have one like for the sponsor roads and but but add to that spreadsheet these new groups that are coming out, the new one, the blue lion. Blue lions. Yeah. And and so that we can reach out to these next year. Yeah. And the guy from the Cub Scouts said to me, you know, if you guys could publish your dates earlier,

you had said that. Yes. And lock this in. So, one of the things I wrote down for this meeting is we should settle on our fall cleanup. Sure. Yeah. Okay. And and we'll figure out how to communicate that. I like that you've got the uh dates for the rest of the year. That's good. I That's That's from this gentleman here who does our solar solid waste like this. So I thought that's Yeah. Yeah. Um great. Okay. Um sponsor road John I have four uh two this week and then two in in coming weeks. Um and we we'll get them all done. They're all scheduled and

that's all these aren't here. Uh yes. Yes. And uh um they should be good to go. I don't anticipate any issues with any of those. Great. Awesome. Um, no, no sponsor spot updates for me. Um, I do think that we need to hold off on and doing anything from that further anyway until we start to really get some funds coming in and know what we're doing there. Yep. Great. Yep. And then the bag at the library is up and going. There are four kits set up at the library. Um, when I uh I I put a thing on Facebook about the library program just to pump it up a little bit and uh when I checked this morning, one kit was out.

Oh, great. Wow. Is the library open? It's partway. What you have to do, unfortunately, right now at the library is uh you have to go over to the police station and there's the when you walk in the front door of the police station, if you take a left, the library is set up on the left there. But our stuff is not in that room. You can't just walk in, grab a bag, sign it out, and go. You have to either reserve it online, and I gave everybody instructions on how to do that, or you can call them, and when you come in, they'll have it ready for you. So, it's it's not usual, right? But the library is supposed to move back in in June, so it's not

Oh, that's great. Okay, that's great. And then this thing, I just checked this down the hall here. And uh people are signing the book and putting their email addresses in which is good. That's excellent. And we have uh four vests out right now and two grabbers are out. So, and people are taking bags. So, it's good. Some people have just come in and taken bags. That's wonderful. And Okay. And there was a cleanup done over the weekend on the uh playground and the fellow Did you handle that? that came I don't know who that how that came to me. Oh, I know. Dave Wally sent it to me. Okay. Yeah.

And um he came to me and u I set him up with some stuff and then he took all the grabbers on the rack. That's great. That's great. Those So, but he only does that clean up every other year. So, I told him we stay in touch with him. Do do we know like these groups that came out uh how they happened to do it? Was it because of the article in the London Times or were they contacted by someone like Katie Sullivan or something like that? I I know on the on the boys lacrosse that was through the the athletic director because he brings the football team in. So that was related to that. I don't know on the Cub Scouts, do they?

I don't know either. Um I I think they were probably looking for community service um outreach. Um yeah. So, uh, I I've got actually email addresses for both those groups and you know, I'll get them to you if you don't have them elsewhere. But, um, but you know, we'll we we I know we're going to talk about communication and stuff, but um, you know, the particularly these groups that can bring in Yeah. crowds are are are good for us. So, Well, that that's exciting that you had such a turnoff. Yeah. Yeah. For whatever reason.

Yeah. Um Yeah. And I do wonder if it's because our date was a little earlier. It was before vacation. You know, we had always been hitting, you know, since I've known about Beautify London. It's been the weekend that school lets out. It's the weekend, you know, at the end of the vacation. And then it was the following weekend when they had it as three. And I I think it's just it's too much for families. And so having it early, you know, we took a gamble this year and I I think it worked. So stay with it. When is vacation? Is it next week?

It's next week. Yep. Yep. Yep. It's next week. So um excellent. Okay. Um on to welcome to London Signs update. I'll do that.

Do you want to do that, John? Yeah. So, uh, there've been some, so the good news, I guess, just to catch everybody up, is that the signs were taken down and they've been transported up to Littleton and they're in the hands of the sign maker. And, uh, and that's the good news. Uh, the bad news is that one of the signs What's going There's a lot of cars out there. What's going on? I don't know. I don't know. One of the signs is not recoverable. Oh no.

Okay. So, I had him send me some pictures which I just kind of blew up for you, but and I'll pass this around, but one of the things you'll see is that there are three major cracks in this sign and that somebody came and tried to repair. Well, didn't try somebody repaired these. Okay. They put filler crack filler in. Okay. Okay. And then they put uh braces. You can see them. This is the back picture of the sign. braces on the ends and then they put a piece of plywood on the back trying to hold everything together, which was fine. It was a fix, right?

But you can't do anything with it anymore. Okay. Now it's got mold in in the sign and and they can't recover it. Okay. So, so what does that mean costwise? Um, they don't use western red cedar, which is what those signs are, uh, because it's become very scarce. Um, and it's become extremely expensive. Very expensive. So, they have, and I I don't want to pretend I understand, but they have a uh some kind of a urethane thing that they do, and they put a little bit of backing on it now

so that it's not made out of wood. Now, supposedly it lasts forever. Um, but and it doesn't have it's not subject to water and all this other stuff. Uh but the downside uh is that the to replace that sign would be about $6,500 that single sign. So um so uh couple of ideas. Uh you I'll go there first. Yeah, I think um we have a sign uh that was over by Wendy's. Yeah. Which is down low, which nobody can see. It's almost impossible. Even if you look, you only see it for a half a second because you're kind of coming around a little bit of a bend.

I agree. So, and then we also heard from Rick over the DPW that one or two of our posts may be in trouble. Okay. The the posts that are holding up been a long time. Yeah. So, my suggestion would be we'll have him work have the sign maker work on four signs, recover those. We'll write off this. Yeah. Okay. Y leave uh not we won't replace the sign at Wendy's. Okay. And we'll take those two posts out of the ground and uh use those in case one of the other posts on one of the other signs needs to be replaced. Okay.

Now, where was this one? This one, I think from the picture and from previous pictures I taken was on the north end of town up by um the old yard restaurant and and the uh construction vehicles that are on the lefth hand side of the road, the the the uh the guy sells. Are you going to take the one at Wendy's and and put that in that place? Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Um so yeah, we we'll do it. So, we'll use the Well, we have to look at So, you're saying no sign at Wendy's? No. No sign. You can't say it anyway, right? No, no, no. So, then Okay. I I'm following what you were saying. So, then it still gives us four signs to go back up, just

not at Wendy's. Wendy's. The remaining four will go to the other spots. Okay. Got it. So, and a thought would be, would we eventually have wanted to move that sign at Wendy's anyways? I think so. Yes.

And and there had been a couple of thoughts on that. One was Dave Wallally suggested um that and I'll volunteer to do this if you want that we let the the Wendy's manager know what's going on uh with the because we'd like to preserve the little burm there because the we may not be able to move the sign, but maybe we can uh when we do come up with a new program to replace the sign, we'll uh we can raise the burm so people can at least see it when they come into town. Why don't you why wouldn't she say we might not be able to remove it? Well, because the I because of location. Just location. If you if you when you're coming up off of 93, it's just difficult to get it out of there.

No, no. When you come up off the exit floor at 93 and you take a left to come to London there, come to Muslim. On the right, there's some open space there and it's very, very visible, but that's state property. Oh, well. Not impossible, right? But we would have it's going to be it's not going to be a tomorrow thing. It's a process involved. Okay. So, we would be able to talk to them, but we'd have to. So, but

at the end of the day, they may come back and say, "We don't want to have anything to do with it." So, we may have to come up with a plan B, but um but in the interim, that would be I would suggest next year's fundraiser because we don't have the $6,500. No, no, no. for the sign in front of Wendy's or for the post at Wendy's if we can't raise the mound that it's on. Can we just get longer poles post for it when we do if we were going to leave it there? Um we could uh the DPW would put the higher burn they would take the post would just be taller. No, I I propose that was my original idea. Oh, and they can't do that.

They they said that's probably not a good idea. Um they um but they said what they they would DPW could raise the burm for us. So they raised the dirt and then they put this so it's probably the for wind or something if it's too tall. You know what that I didn't ask I didn't ask. I'm just No, no. I I had the same first thought. Put bigger sticks. Put Yeah. Then there then it's in the same spot. So worst case scenario when the time comes they either make make us a mountain there and then put the normal post on our mountain. Right.

The other thing I would say to you is where we're changing that new sign will not be identical to the signs that we have because it won't be red cedar wood for example. Right. Right. Okay. Um, I would say that we have to go out for a whole new bidding process on that side because that might um that that we may have to do something total I I I I I want to I would want to challenge that $6,500 price and see if we could do better. Yeah. Okay. Right. Yeah. If it's going to look just like the other signs but just made out of something different, who cares, right? I mean, who cares? you know, that's fine if it's something that's durable as long as it still has that same look, right?

Well, but you know what? The fact that um this red cedar wood and nobody is working with wood anymore and all this other stuff according to explains why I really couldn't get anybody interested other than our current guy doing this because nobody does this anymore. Nobody does it. So, but if we go to this new sign thing, okay, and we h I have some description from here him of

it's called high density urethane with an aluminum composite backing material. Okay. And it needs a new a different kind of bracket on it. Okay. Um the uh uh if we go to that, we can put it out and probably get some prices on it, right? Because just in trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about here, I saw half a dozen sun companies that work with this stuff. I don't know if it's all apples and apples, but Right. Right. Sounds like it might be more durable. It's supposedly durable, waterproof, moldproof, everything. Bulletproof. Bulletproof. And the one with

bulletproof glass. Um, I spoke a little about this with uh Kristen Hilden and her suggestion, which I think is a hell of an idea, is that the town is uh uh got a new they call it an asset management program where they put stuff into that program on a maintenance schedule. Okay? So, uh, a a bulldozer has every five years you you've got to do something to it and then you have to rotate it out every 10 years or whatever it is. Okay.

Um, we could get these signs into that program. talking to not my guy Roy that I talked to, but his guy that actually does the work um yesterday. Um he said that these signs, these signs in wood or this sign in whatever

high density urethane, okay, um every three or four years, okay, depending on weather conditions and everything that goes on, you want to kind of come in and refresh the sign. We'll put it into a maintenance program and have the town fund it and get us out of fundraising for the welcome. Well, if we could pull it off. Okay. Um I think they might come back and say we still have to fund raise for it. But but we don't have the sign failing. By the way, th this sign and uh these signs went up in 2008. It's a little older than we thought. So yeah. Um but that's sort of where we're at. There 18 years outside our town.

18 years. We have any kind of a museum. Yeah. Yeah, we do. That red building that red Morrison something or other. Or maybe this sort of old sign should be in that museum instead of just, you know, like if they can't repair that one, it maybe it should be an historical feature in that museum. I will I I will talk to that's interesting. somebody in history. It's just my That's why we have one. We're not trashing it. We still have the original sign and it can be from back in the 2008 before you were born. You'll be too,

you know. I'm just a thought is that it could go somewhere. Fall somewhere or That's a great idea. Who knows? Yeah, it's a great idea. And you know what? If they stick it inside, it'll probably last forever. Yeah, that would be okay. Nobody, you know, there's two guys on the heritage commission with me that are in the historical society. I'll ask them. Okay. I just think I think it's a great idea for old lang and all that stuff. We should hang on to it. Like we shouldn't just say, right?

Okay. I tal last thing. I talked to the the the guy that's actually doing the painting yesterday and two things. He said be about a month before he's done with the four signs. Okay. um around that uh which is important because it's our responsibility to um paint the posts. So uh uh the reason I talked to him yesterday was I said uh part of our deal was you guys were going to get me like a gallon of paint

and and some of the gold because the very top of it the post are gold and he said yep I'll have somebody drop it off and they left it at my house the other day. So I've got that. I've also got some filler because some of the posts have cracks on it. I've got some wood hardener that we can use to So, we can use the posts that are there. I think so. We may have We'll have to see. There might be one or two that are and that's what we'll will replace that. And I'm sure I can get Dave Wallally to pull a post out of Wendy's for us. Are we going to use a young fellow to do that to to paint it and stuff? Uh was his name. Oh. Um

I I don't think I don't think he's I don't think he's going to do it for free. So I I think we want to try to do that with our own resources. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, we'll paint. Yeah, I can paint. I don't I don't mind painting. Yeah, I can too. I I think the biggest challenge were one or two of them we may have to put up like a little bit of ladder because it's about the posts are about three foot into the ground and they're about 8 foot at the highest point. Okay. I got a good I got a good letter with a safety letter. Tell me when we're going. Yeah. And and it's it's not a one tripper because we we have we have to

we have to wash them first. I talked to this guy. Okay. He says you got to wash them first. Okay. Put the wood hardener into the cracks. And I bought some of that. Okay. Then fill the let that dry. Okay. Then come back and fill them. And I have the the stuff that you put in to fill those. Let that dry. Light sanding with a brick uh a medium thing that I bought some of those. Okay. And uh let let everything dry. It looks good. Then one coat, probably two coats uh of paint on it.

How are we going to get water there to to wash them? I'm I'm thinking like a five gallon bucket sponge and just wipe them down as best a couple like cheap gallons of water. Okay. Yeah. And uh and and I he I said, "What kind of" And he said like Dawn or something like that. It doesn't have to be anything exotic. But just to get after 18 years or whatever it's been, there'll be a lot of stuff on it. You know, I I have a a spray that's like this and you pump it up and you could put water You could wash it off. You know, if you put on some kind of detergent, you want to wash it off,

you could use that cuz there's not going to be any hose there or anything and you got some pressure behind it. So, maybe that would work. Yeah. Um, so, uh, finances. Okay. So, the original price, uh, to just to do the signs was 10,000. All right. Take 2,000 off because there's one sign they won't do. So, that makes it 8,000. Yeah. Um, there was one mistake made when the DPW sent these up. Originally, they were supposed to take the brackets off the sides and they're metal and they were going to leave them with us to paint and they that message didn't make it through. So, um, this guy is going to paint those and I'm sure he'll charge us something for that for doing that.

Um, so I'm going to throw a number out there, $500 because I have no idea what he's going to charge us. Okay. So we'll we'll we'll go from 10,000 to 8,500. Okay. Approximately uh for all this and we'll do the posts ourselves and um hopefully by six eight weeks from now we'll be all done this so we don't have to worry about this for a while. And they're going to install them. DPW will put them back up for us. They're going to pick them up and bring them back and install them. Pick them up. Bring them back. Put them back up. So the posts are they are there now, right? Yes, they're all in place. So we have to do that before they install them,

right? And and like today would have not been a good day. Um because it it really has to be 40 45 degrees higher than that. Oh yeah. Terrible to do anything. Yeah. And it has to be a little dry. Hopefully this this cool snap is over. Boy. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, but, uh, so anybody that I I'll also paint, you know, and I have I think I have everything we probably need to paint. So, um, that's all I got to say about it. Okay. Um,

I think it it might be good to um for us to come up with a schedule now since we're, you know, our next meeting is not until May 19th. So, um it would be great if we could just kind of target a couple of days that we might be able to tackle this project. Um I have next week off um and we are not traveling. We're not doing anything. We're doing house projects. So, yeah,

if I just add one more one more type of project, that's fine. Um, so, um, you know, for me, I'm pretty wide open for for next week. I'm looking at trying to see the weather. Yeah. The whole like the other day when it was 70° would have been great. Yes, it would have been. And um, it looks like 60. Looks like we're getting a lot of rain next week. Oh, really? I only have Wednesday. Like Wednesday, Thursday, Friday 55, 57, 58, but it's like 6 45% chance of rain. You know, like Wednesday looks like rain.

Depends on also time of day, you know, a little bit of rain. Um the uh the hardener and the filler only take an hour or two to dry. Okay. So, they're not so bad. Okay. And we may once we wash and and you can wash in the rain. It doesn't matter. We're just trying to get the right any stuff off it. But um but you know what? You are also driving around to five different areas to to do it. So um but I'm pretty open next week too. So maybe it's going to have to play by ear waiting on the weather. Yeah. Yeah. Whenever have a couple days where it's going to be warm and dry. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe in a couple more days we take a look at the weather a little bit more detail and say, you know.

Okay.

Okay. All right. That sounds good. That sounds good. Um I don't know if we need to vote on these changes um at all. Um kind of our our decision for taking away the sign from Wendy's um is kind of a major decision. So, I think I'd like to have a vote on on that. Um, and you know, open the floor if anybody else has uh, you know, any other ideas um, at this point in time. But I do think it's I mean, it's pretty clear we do not have the money. We're not going to be able to fund raise enough to get that um, we don't have enough sign. And, you know, I'm in complete agreement. I think at this point we go out and go for a bid. Um if there are all different kinds of companies that can do these types of signs um that we take a look and see next year,

right? Yeah. Yeah. I think that's next year. I think that's next year. Um so do you want a motion on that? Yeah. If you want to just make a motion. I would move that the sign at Wendy be taken down to replace the one that is damaged and cannot be repaired. So that will be four signs out this year and it will replace the one up in the north part of town. Great. Second. Second. Oh, excellent. Okay. All in favor? I

I All right. That plan is approved. Do we need to do any voting about seeing about the this as an asset or is that just Oh, that's down the low, I think. Okay. Yeah. I I don't think agree. Yeah. As a matter of fact, I don't think the town's asset management program is completely up and running yet. Oh, okay. But it's a future. Yeah. I I I think we if particularly if there's a way of of getting this off our fundraising list, it would be great. Yeah. Right. Because it is a not our expertise. It's a big It's a big press. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's the albatross. You know, for us where we're such a small committee, we really can't

Oh, right. But not for long. Raise enough. Do you have people too? I I've had people, too. There were two people that were appointed last night. What? There were two appointed last night. Wait. Oh. Oh, really? I did not hear this. Yeah. No, I I STARTED OH, I'LL be honest with I was watching the town council meeting on YouTube around 3:30 4:00 this afternoon and I said, "Oh my god, we got two people." I sent a note off to Kirsten said, "Hey, could you let these guys know that that we have now that neither one of them was at the meeting at the town council meeting? They were just appointed." Okay. Okay. Okay. And I said, "Could you let these guys know we have a meeting tonight?" But it was so late. I might ask her. Okay. Okay.

And um um both of them, all I know is they're both women, John, so we continue to be outnumbered in these meetings. Okay. Okay. Which is fine by me, by the way. Um no problem. Um but uh so and hopefully they both come. Do we know their names? I was just going to say that their names are in the meeting. I didn't write them down because I wanted to run to my text. I don't care who you are if you How did they come to fulfill the slots that were open? I think you know what I'm gonna I think let's have that questioning for later because I really would like to get to their fundrais talk about our fundraising. Yep.

Um I did reach out to people who came to beautify lender um cleanup and I let them know that there were spots on the committee and so now I kind of feel bad because they said that they were interested. So maybe it could be them. I don't know. It could be them. Um okay. Well, that's good news. That's good news. I will look into that and we'll find out for next meeting. Um, okay. So, our um fundraising um that's kind of like the big thing we need to we need to talk about um today um and spend a little bit of really good time on. Um I do have um so the information that he had given us um

Larry

that Larry had given us last year um in kind of his just like two-page thing that they that he that John you had sent around to us prior to that meeting. Um um I have that here for us to kind of refresh um our um our understanding of. But um you know I do think that we need to even if we're not going to be doing even if we're not going to be involved in the signs which I I would agree I feel like that's kind of a it's kind of not the core of this committee and what not the core of what we are you know kind of tasked with. I think that the signs fell to us because of where they originated under um for the um sewer and solid waste committee and it was beautify lendary but at the time beautify lendary was also kind of in combination with um with people on the town. So it it it wasn't a purely volunteer committee. You know there was a little bit more um

there was a little I think Joy you're being so kind. I think it was the fickle finger of fate. Where should we put this on? Who do we put this on? Who wasn't at the meeting tonight? They'll be the sign people. Um, so I but I do I feel like it's a really it's kind of a core part of of of you know our atmosphere in London. So it' be good. One of the reasons DPW I think is helping us with these signs is Dave Wallally feels really guilty. Does he? Yeah. Sorry for us.

Okay. Thank you, Dave. Oh. Um, so I think that Larry G gave us some really great advice next time, you know, regardless, we are going to have to start fundraising for Can I can I say, you know, buy before we even start? Yes. Yes. Is there any possibility that we could be somehow included in the budget now that we're a legitimate committee that we could be getting some kind of a budget from the town to do our activities? Is there any process in applying for that?

That's a great question. Um I think we um might sworn in as a legitimate committee. um we might approach our um I think because we are um you know we are considered similar to the arts council um and they do not receive any money as far as I know I don't think they receive any funding from the town they are also completely reliant on donations for um for what they do um so But it does not hurt to ask. I think it does.

I mean, why not? I wouldn't ask for, you know, big box or something, you know. Yeah. You know, because we get the bags from DPW, right? No, the bags they come from the state. From the state. So, there's no expenses. Somebody that's that's no expense. I feel like Yeah. To your point is that we are providing a service. We are not I'm not

don't know how they word it for the arts council. that's you know but for us we are doing a service to the town because DPW cannot do this. So I think if we try to figure out how we could ask for something in the budget, we've got to look at really work that into it is that we are providing a service to the town to the DP well to the town but also alleviating some some um pressure on DPW to have to keep the town clean. Right. I think there's a good way to what's that? They pick up the buildings, right? But I mean, you know,

Yeah. Um, I think you're kidding yourself. I think you're kidding yourself. You got to remember that we were defeated on a ballot. That was a cut people out with a but there was there was only $10,000 on that which is not as you said big box and it wasn't just a a little close thing. We were crushed on that. But they didn't they just probably just there's no need there's really no need for that. Okay. So we were crushed. That's number one. Number two, which means that the town couldn't give us anything till next year anyways, right?

Okay. So, that that's not not even an option. Um the other thing is if you've watched some of these things that have come up right now, we have some huge things coming up in this town. We've got the construction on the the school office that's being done. We've got all this school stuff that's going through. We got the the big kahuna over there, the Marrison house. What is the town gonna do with that thing? We would be so low down on the totem pole right now. Um that I think if you think there's a realistic chance of us getting any money in any time frame, you're kidding yourself because I don't think it's going to happen. Now, if we're smart and we play it right, we might be able to get, you know, through the maintenance program, if we can get it into the asset management program, get some funding that way. But, but we're never going to get money for this in my opinion. Okay. I just I just don't think it's going to happen. We had the we had 100% support of the budget committee and the town council for a warrant article and we were defeated. You know, I've I've talked to people that vote and there's so many people I just vote no for everything. And if they can find something

that isn't a big item that they can vote down, it doesn't look like, oh, this is the the most needed thing in the town, they'll vote it down. That's what happened. Yeah. They're trying to find some way to cut the budget, and that was one way to do it, even though it was only $10,000. All right. Well, let's go back out. We can take that. Yeah, I think another spot. Um Um I do think it's worthwhile to, you know, I I can ask and see what that would entail. Doesn't hurt. Doesn't hurt to ask. John may be right, but it doesn't hurt. Oh, I I agree. It doesn't hurt. I just don't think it's going to happen.

Okay. So, one of the things I think that we should do with the rest of our time and um um I'm gonna I'm gonna ask that I haven't been home since since 5 this morning. Well, we got our kid to the bus at 5:15 this morning to ship them on the bus for DC. Um, yeah. So, um, so I think let's spend some time talking about fundraising. And one of the things that I would suggest that Larry brought up and he kind of I think he honed in on this again and again is that we really um, a couple of things we need to um, you know, figure out like what is our core vision to um, bring to businesses um, for our ask. this is, you know, this is what we do for the town and this is how we can bring visibility to you. Um and so and so that is um what did he he call this? Um

it's like the why.

How do we build value? Yeah, the why. How do we build value? And then what are we um going to do to show appreciation for those sponsors? And so what I think if we could spend some time right now while the four of us are together um really kind of just brainstorming a those two things. Then what I propose is that um we take some time like outside the meeting um where um you know just a couple of us sit down and like slam through these are the ideas that we came up with at the meeting. here's a great letter that we and he did say that he thought the best bet for us was to do a targeted campaign. Um, and you know, and send out those those letters, do a targeted campaign to things that to people that we feel are are important

before we do some of the more formal before we do some of the other more formal things. Get a couple of wins.

Yeah. Get a couple of wins. Um, and so I think that that would be, you know, I would I propose that we, you know, have a letter ready at our next meeting that we can all take a look at and all vote on. But if we and you know, a list of potential targets for for that letter. Um, but if we come up as a committee right now of those wise, right? um and what we're going to do for our sponsors. Then I think that we don't all have to spend time on crafting that letter. We can just, you know, kind of like even just a couple of us like bang it back and forth to each other for for edits. Um and Larry did say he he'd take a look at it for us for a final eye. Um so how does that sound? Does that sound like a good plan of attack for

for this? It it seems like um the people we we ought to be a prime attack because of what we're doing with the signs and everything and trying to make London Derry more attractive would be real estate.

Real estate. Yeah. because they want they want this town to be as attractive as as it can that this when people come here that they figure oh this is a good place to live or this is good place to establish a business and we're trying to do this attracting with the signs making the people feel welcome and trying to make the town attractive and clean I don't know if that's something to think about the the real estate people would be uh most interested in this. What do you think?

I think so. I think you hit upon two things there, Don. you took you hit upon what's our value and um you know we try and enhance making beautify lender attractive and clean and um hitting on who our target audience would be for when you take a look at these streets that were picked up compared to what they were before it is it is unbelievable how how nice everything looks

um okay So, so anybody else? What do we What do we How does Beautify London bring value to London? I would say we bring community together. Yeah. I was I was going to just say community spirit. Yeah. Okay. Um Yeah. Yeah. That type of thing. Yeah. Okay. Community spirit. making making people proud of our town. Yeah. Pride. And and maybe maybe this is what happened with so many people came out this time and people are finally realizing, you know, this is a good thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Supporting. We're also supporting or this event like we had a huge turnout with the Cub Scouts in Lacrosse. So, Beautify Londereerry with the assistance of local teams helps promote keeping our streets Yeah. Yeah. So, we're kind I want I want to say inclusive, but we're not because that could be a different thinking of ADA type stuff, you know. Right. Right. Um Yeah. Y but it's community involvement. Yeah. And that is community spirit. involvement with with in supporting these other groups.

Yep. Support civic. Yeah. You know, we had that program that we had and we had two people that were part of it that gave money. Yeah. and one that I contacted who was a real estate and I tried a couple of times the head person was out of out of the country. Uh that may if we do something like this I would be willing to go back on that. Yeah. And see if because they had supported us before. Yeah. That they might with this kind of an effort might be willing to do it again.

Yeah. Yeah. Yep. It's great. But beyond I I think what we what we do community spirit and some of the other things we've talked about here. I think what Larry was talking about is what are you going to do for that business? Yeah. So, and I think you made a point of saying, you know, the signs next to the welcome to London signs are nice, but you got to do a lot more to bring value to the customer. And if you think about some of the things he talked about, they do uh the handouts at the concert of the commons

uh thing and and we frankly had all those folks that came Saturday and we didn't really give them anything to walk away with it. Okay. And so I I I you know I think we have to think about how uh when when people buy advertising uh businesses small business by advertising um one of the parts of some of those presentations is how many times are you going to put my name Yeah. in front of potential customers. Okay. And so I think one of the things that we need to talk about is um how many times we're going to let people know that this guy supported us. Y okay

um so we have uh a list I think of of folks that have participated with us in the past. Okay. And Joy I'm not saying you have to do the whole but but we need that master list and then in addition to having the master list we have to agree to how are we going to communicate to people on that list. Okay. I I don't think it's enough to do some of the Facebook stuff that I think that you and I do. Um I think I think it it's probably has to be every other month we send them,

hey, here's Beautify London's update. Here's what's going on. Okay. Um let them know what we're working on, what we're thinking about. um uh uh that kind of thing. So that we're communicating with them because and then as part of that we have our sponsor's name and their logo in every one of those things. please support our sponsors. And and that way you can go back to the sponsor and say, you know, we put your name next to the welcome to Londereerry sign and you we do a bimonthly uh mailing to 487 people in Londereerry where we list you as a sponsor. Yeah.

Okay. And we do um monthly social media posts. Okay. Um, whatever is involved. I, you know, whatever. Um, and uh, and then other things. I'm throwing stuff out now. Those are all good though. That's right. Yeah. So, I think that's what we should list out is what what are things that we can offer and, you know, with two people coming on. I think that we can do, you know, we can do a lot more for sure on our web p on our website. our website. We need to have on our website. Yep. I agree.

What about like I don't guess maybe that's what Sean was thinking about, you know, using the London Derry Times to have periodic articles and thank and using that to thank our sponsors. I think I think Larry said they do something in the library. He puts But what if to Joan's point like because that goes to every house when these we've missed a lot of these dates of you know we could put some one in for April or so like beginning of May saying thank you to these

companies that and the dates that they went out we don't have to say where they went but just um just you know something like that and then so then in we have one in so I don't know when the magazine would come out. So then maybe in June we'd say we have this coming, you know, I don't know. But going with these sponsor road schedule if we had something to thank them in that next month's edition of London Times would be just a little blurb. Thank you. You know, win winds for coming out. Yeah, that would be another

Y people who sponsor the roads. Thank them in that too. And plus anybody that's right helped us a great idea to to to thank them and that get that covers every house in London at a reasonable cost. Yep. Mhm. I think that's a great idea and that's something that we can start right now because they are they've they will have gone out by the time that and a little you know letter to the editor would be written and then in there. So yeah I mean you can do that periodically. Yeah. Who wants to volunteer for that? Actually, I don't even know how to who how to get something in there. I mean,

Deb Paul at um Yeah, it's Yeah. Do we Do you give her Here's our You put this in. You just give it You already tell you give them our finished piece. Yes, the finished piece. Yeah. Yeah. Y well that I think that's something we can decide upon. Yeah. Meaning of who we're going to have at a particular def at and then we can write that out boards. Yeah. No, she's different. Oh, because it's going to go to the newspaper. Yeah. Nut pub, I think it is or something. Merry Times. Mberry Times. Yeah,

I think there's information in the paper how to do it. Give her a call or something. You know, because you've done it. Yeah, I've done it a bunch of times. I Yeah, I I need to I don't have the contact saved in here, but I can Let's see if I do. Do you uh nutpub? N U T P U B.net. P U B Nut not Nutpub. Yeah, that one. No, it's So it's deep nutpub. Oh nutpub. Sorry. Nutpub.org or com ornet.

Now they don't charge for that, do they? Joy, if you write a letter to the community, right? Okay. And and she's our contact person. She is our I I would think she would agree. Okay. Shouldn't be a problem. Yeah. No, she's really publishing. Yeah. Nutfield Publishing. Well, no. I But it sounds like it'd be a cool name for a nut. We're going to the nut club. Nut club. I think it would cover more people at the least amount of expense. Yeah. And do it on a regular basis.

Okay, great. Um website. We have the we have website next to um next to the sign traditional um email to our list of volunteers every month. Um John, you had mentioned something to hand out. So if we're going to be doing Well, we did that. We did that at all home day. If we're going to be doing all home day and if we're because I handed them out brochure. Correct. I mean with this if we're doing some marketing, are we revamping that as well? Yep. We should. Yep. New brochure um hand out at old home day and if we are going to be doing concert on the commons having something there.

I was going to ask about that concert on the commons. So I don't know how many they have the they arts council hands out their program if we're going to are we hoping to have a table there where we could sell the hats. I think table we can have a table with hats on and we can give out the brochure at that. Does that cost anything for us to do that? No, no, no. And uh we can um give out brochures there. I don't know that they will let us walk through the crowd like probably not. But no, I wouldn't want to walk through the crowd either. No, they're there for a concert. You don't want to disturb the area. Yeah. Yep. Now, that would would be contacting Larry. We have just

before we have a new brochure. It's it's all set. We we would just have to could we have a separate sponsors page with that? Absolutely. So listing, you know, here's our brochure. Y whether however it works out in the list of sponsors. So that would be the other thing we'd be telling these customers is that or the potential sponsors. Yeah. Is that we would have be have presence at the um council the comments and handing out our information and our sponsor list. They would be included on that. Yeah. Do we have Don't we have a banner or something for that we could use for the

There used to be and I was thinking about this. Um I I think the banner for a long time precoid we had a I mean it was a long time ago and it was a big one though we had one that used to go across the street. I remember I remember this was like one of my first involvements in beautify land. I remember like it got it got trashed because it was going across the street. And so, um, I don't think we have a current banner, but that is a possibility to have for they're not super expensive to make. Um, and so, uh, however, you know, once you make it, you have it. So, I don't know. We'd have to get our sponsors in place, um, to use something like that.

Oh, you you want to put them on the sign. So, that's a Right. That would be a possibility. Um, if we had a table for that and you could have a have a banner at the table and have a banner down there, people would know who we are and what we're about. Yeah. So, you're saying just have a banner. Just a banner. Just a banner. Well, to to for a standard size table so people know. That's what I was going to ask. Are we doing what size card table? What size table do we get at old home day? Well, pro probably an 8 by10. the three and a half by six or eight foot table like the ones we have at the right the and and we already own I own one I think you own one

okay so that would be because we just want to get a sign that's going to accommodate our standard table how is that in the front of the table that can hang down and people will realize who we are right um uh okay so I think that's what I think that's really good um that's kind of separate from our sponsors but I think that's really I think that would be a really great thing to have for us to for so what I'm thinking is you I've even seen tablecloths where you have the thing on the front and and that's fine we get the name out front but maybe something at the concert on a common thing besides the handouts on brochures where we have their name

if there's something that's changed because we have to be able to add to add to it right okay so um the sponsor we have to come up with I we have to see I wonder if Don I wonder if Um, I wonder if they have bigger acrylic, you know, the acrylic things that you have that you can just slide in the paper to. I wonder if they have larger ones. Are they?

Yeah, because that's something that we could that we could um keep adding to. We could, you know, put that on display. Um you the other thing too that um we you know races um a lot of times in the old old days when there was a lot of sponsors for races and not just one sponsor um but they would have them all listed on the back of the t-shirt. Yeah. Um and we could do that for our sponsors for um uh for when we hand out the t-shirts too. for next round.

Yeah, road races always have like t-shirts and they have the sponsors on the back of the shirts. Yeah. Um so, okay. So, all we have a lot of ideas. That's awesome. Well, you know what you as long as we're throwing stuff up. Yep. Um maybe we should think about doing an old home day float. Okay. Something that would feature Beautify London but also have something with our sponsor's name. Yeah. Oh yeah. Okay. So that and and I don't know what that would entail and what we would have to use. So I mean it doesn't have to be anything fancy, right? No doesn't have to.

And I'm saying float, but it could be uh all of us walking down the street, one person with a a leninary boop and people with sponsor signs and sandwich boards or whatever. I feel like that Oscar the the Oh, that costume is being called in. Walking down the street with a blue bag and a grabber. Yeah. Yeah. They won't need batons. We got grabbers. That's true. You know that people would know. We could carry the blue bags and throw throw candy out from the blue bags. Yeah. Now we'd be littering.

We'd be littering. Oh, just for the parade for in August. That's a third Saturday in August usually. No, I just was thinking temperature- wise. Yeah. Inside an Oscar inside an Oscar costume. You could have two people with grabbers and gloves and the whole and the and the things and and a big trash bag between a trash can between them. Absolutely. I could do my Cub Scout cheer out in the front. That's right. Well, if you're going to do your Cub Scout cheer on the microphone on the mic and you could have the banner before. That's all you would need. Yeah.

Have a banner with two people holding it before and people with grabbers and maybe a trash can and they get maybe get the uh what's happening and that wouldn't wouldn't cause a lot. You wouldn't have to have a float per se. Just had rocking along. that might work. Um, good. Okay. Um, so John, you mentioned targeting realtors. I agree. I think that's a good target. Is there any other businesses that um we can think that we might want to um

types of businesses? You know what? And and I think this has come up a couple times in these meetings about folks that aren't necessarily local, but have local um those are more complicated, but they can also come with more cash. Okay. So, for example, the guy from Wind Waste said now to get charitable contributions um he has to speak to somebody in Baltimore. Oh, yeah. And I said the whole thing. Yeah. But I said, could you do that for me? Oh, yeah. I'll I'll I'll do that for you. Yeah.

The the folks from Waste Management that also came Saturday. Okay. Um that woman is new to the area. She has a vested interest in this, but she has to talk to somebody else. But they have tons of cash. Yeah. Okay. And she she basically said, as did the guy from Wind Waste, the $250 or the $500 donations are are not a problem. Okay. It's when we start to get beyond that that we start to run into some things. So, multiple ones work one.

One of one of the things that um I was reminded of the other day was that uh salespeople um businessto business salespeople, it typically takes at least four touches, four contacts before anything happens. Okay? You have to do it like four times. And I'm guilty of this too. I do it once or twice and that you sort of punt and and you really have to kind of reach back four times uh to get something moving forward.

You know what you talk I I remember we did this at one way back when and I'm not going to name the bank, but that's what we ran into because they weren't local on their own. They couldn't make the decisions. they have to go somewhere else and sometimes they're not they don't want to do that or they feel it's not going to happen. That's why I think if you have local businesses that that are here and they're on their own, they're independent, those may be your best shots. Yeah. Yes. Maybe. Okay. Because they generally are smaller dollars, too, right? Okay. Yeah. In terms of

I'm not saying you shouldn't try. No, I'm not saying. And and the other thing, John, is is is when you you don't get the deal, you don't get the sale, you turn around, you go to the next one. Yeah. Okay. That's what the game is. Spoken like a true marketing. No, no, no. My bad. But you know what? You sales people don't focus so much on their defeats. You learn from your defeat and you move, right? Just move on. Yeah. Um you know, it's just it's just the way it is.

Um So, I I think we've started to develop a list here of of um other things that we can tell people besides, you know, the original thing that I had thrown together about the sign. Okay, we can broaden that out now and talk about other things of value that we could potentially bring to a customer. Here, here here's our program. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And we'd like you to consider making a

$500, $1,000, $2,000 donation to fund all of these things. Okay? You get your name next to the sign. You get your name for a year into our brochure. And and the other thing Larry, I think, stressed about is repeat. We want to do it this year, but we want you to do it with us every year. Right. And so you remember he talked about sending out um cards. Yes. Uh he he purposely stays away from Christmas. I'm not so sure about that. But but um he sends out like cards to remind people, you know, we're your friends. Here's our program again. You know, kind of bringing it up.

Yeah. Um, and yeah, and that's what he he used this program for, which is pretty amazing. Um, I I I mean, we're not there yet. Um, you know, one of the things that I was going to look into is if we can um, you know, get our brand on a on a set of cards and then we can do a couple of handwritten cards to people. Um, and so I'll look into that for um for purchasing. Um, uh, yeah.

Do you do you think to to get more people to respond, do you think we have to do pickups more than twice a year? Do you think we have to like four times a year? I mean, I think that's hard. The part, you know, I mean, we can't obviously it's we can't do it during the winter, right? I mean, it just like there's snow on the ground. Um, maybe three times a year. We could we could absolutely do that. Do a midsummer, you know, pickup just to have people in our area. There's plenty of plenty of traffic. There's no problem there. People are The only thing, John, is that we see such a drop off even in the fall. Yeah. In terms of participation um

because there's so many things going all the sports events, so many things going on just

football games and lacrosse and soccer. I I do think that participation has increased that we're not quantifying because we're not getting we're not getting the full information. People are signing the books now, which is great. Um um and so hopefully if that kept keeps up then we can collect that information and really get a sense of like who's actually who's actually really doing this. Um, and we do have, you know, the checkouts from the library which we can collect that information. I don't know how crazy, you know, busy they are with the with the, you know, with the kind of chaos right now. So maybe after they settle back into their space. Um, maybe then we can we can ask them, you know, hey, in the last year, how many people have checked out this these DIY bags? Do

you know what would be great if it would ever happen? because it happens in one. They have a date. I know the whole I know the whole state I know for for towns to pick up. I know it's excellent. And it's supported by the government and it's statewide. Yeah. If if if we could only get someone to support that. That would be great. I'm sorry. There's a a statewide cleanup clean up. Oh, I didn't know that. In in the state of Vermont in the spring. Oh, in Vermont. Yeah. And and another thing, you know, we're the only state in New England doesn't have a bottle lot. That's another thing that could help. Y

because people could be returning these instead of throwing them out because they're they going way up the chain. Yeah. But I know, you know, I know the reason why they don't want because people bring things back and they don't clean them and they messy and they and they're sticky and well, you got to have a place. You have different recycling specifically for that. Massachusetts has had it for years and all and and it's the guys down there that whined about it initially, they make money on it now. They get half of the deposit. I don't know. That might be something that could be some of our reps might sponsor. I don't know.

Um Okay. So, I think we have good I think we have good starting ideas to move forward. Um so, um I I do think, you know, we had some and we had some initial um numbers for the funding asks that we were that we were thinking about. Um, do we want to stick with those? Um, yeah. I don't think they those were outrageous compared to uh, you know, any numbers that we're looking at. Okay. You know, I think it was 500,000 2,000. Yeah. So, um, I think that's fine. And that doesn't mean that

we shouldn't do smaller fundraising things like like the hats. Right. Right. you know, when when we did the, you know, based on the deal that Beth got on the hats, if we were to sell them, and if they sell at 25, okay, uh, if we sold all the hats that she bought, I think we end up making 2,000 on that or something. That's fine. That's a great thing. Yeah, that's a quarter of what we need to do all the damn sign work. So, um, that's that's great. You know, another thing I might anybody that participates like like a business or something to to have a sticker or something they could put up that they sponsor Yeah. Beautify London that they've done something. We did something like that before. Yeah. We had a We had a kind of

like a decal. Yeah. A decal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, when do concert on the commons start? What? Second week in June or so? It's on Wednesdays, right? Yes. Yeah. And again, if we get particularly if we get two new members, we just take those concerts and whack them up between us so that we don't have everybody take take one or two and Yeah. Right. Yeah. I mean, Betsy and I usually go a couple every year anyway. So, yeah. It's It's not a terrible thing.

As long as you don't spend all your money on the food trucks, you know. Now, there was a thing I think they had in the paper. They had was it two people that they had they were looking for board members for Beautify London Day? There was something in the paper somewhere. I saw it. Oh, okay. And that's where these people may have responded to it. That's great. I bet needs in the town that uh I bet De put that in for us. Yeah.

June 3rd is when we start. That's the first one. I got to put that in my calendar cuz Kaitlyn will be playing. Okay, good, good, good, good. Um, so I I um John, do you want me to take your initial letter, kind of throw in some of the information here that we've got? Do a first cut and then Okay. and and uh share it around and then let's see what everybody thinks. Awesome. Um that'd be great. Okay.

And you're saying like maybe we could we could have kind of like a display type of thing for the concerts of these people who are sponsors and we could add to them each and every time someone comes on board. So those are updated rolling list something in the paper too. Yep. Exactly. Exactly. Um Okay. All right. So, we'll we'll get started on that. Um and you know, hopefully we'll have a really nice letter by the next um workshop. And if we get if we and the next meeting um and if we get lists and addresses, we could even stuff envelopes next meeting possibly.

You know, the other thing I was thinking about which Larry does not do is for some of these businesses, for example, like a Jersey Mike's. Yeah. If they would supply us with as as part of their sponsorship with coupons that people could use that we can stamp so when they come back in with their coupons, they can see the impact of Yeah. of of, you know, we we we sponsored them. They gave out some of our coupons at at Yeah. their events or or whatever. Um, and we could potentially even do that at

at something like u the concert in the commons or all the home days or whatever. Um, I I mean, we'd have to think that one through, but but yeah, that might be another value. You know, we'll distribute. If you think about the magazines that, you know, we get like I think two or three different things of coupons at the front of the month every Yeah. uh every month at at the beginning of the month that has coupons in it. So they pay that manufact that company that puts together that booklet of coupons to mail that out every month, right?

And then the people bring and we do it. We'll bring the coupons to different places and get whatever the discount is. Yes. Okay. Maybe that would be something we could do where they would supply us. You know, it would be nice if they had like a coupon and we had a stamp and we put purify London diary on it. So when people come in, they know that's exactly it. They know that's exactly it. That's what they were saying. That that was they know that this is a result and people this oh this is how this is how we're supporting it and this is how we're going to advance oursel for it. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

And I know some of these guys do. I know that Betsy brings home Jersey Mike's coupons that get distributed to uh Moose Hill school from school and she'll she'll bring those home and say, "Hey, we got uh buy a sub, get a sub free coupon from Moose Hill or something like that." So, but what I'm saying, I mean, they can have a standard coupon and we can we can u we'll distribute it and stamp it. We'll stamp it so they'll know that it's Beautify Legendary so they don't have to do something special. All we have to do is put a stamp on it and they'll know. Yeah. Great. Yeah. Um, excellent. You got enough time to move forward.

I think I think I have enough to move forward. Um, paint post painting next week. How are we going to communicate? Depends on the weather. I guess whoever can communicate what day you can do it. Um, I think so. I'm I'm good any day next week. John, do you want to journey? I'm Monday through Friday next week, I'm good. Okay. I I can do whatever has to be done. And and if I have a chance before then to sneak out and maybe start cleaning these things and do some stuff because that's not necessarily a team effort necessarily.

Um I can do that. Okay. Okay. And uh I even have I think an extended poll I can use to wash things down and stuff. So um and uh and then we can go from there. Well, someone can make a decision on the weather and this should send out an email. Why don't we take a look on Friday? Why don't we take a look at the weather on Friday? Um and say, well, I'm working and I'm on call Thursday this coming week. So I know I'm I might be able to get away for a couple hours and we're there to help out. Yeah. Which is totally fine. Actually, you have a safety ladder. How How

Yeah, it's like a I don't know how to explain it. It gets you It's It has a It's a three-step ladder. It's super secure. I use it. So, it gets you up pretty, you know, decent height, but it also has a handle on. So, when you're up on the ladder, you're just not really, you've got the thing at the top. I want to say it's a little giant or something. Yeah. I I I have one, but I think mine's only two steps and it has the handle on it. Oh, no. This is like three steps, but it gets me pretty high. Okay. Like I could, you know, that's great. But you could you could take a look at it. I can bring those sprayers so it could we'll have water there to wash things off, rinse things off.

Quick question on this here. I noticed here. This is Tuesday the 22nd. Yeah. Today's the 21st. So, are they going out? That's tomorrow. So, they're going out Wednesday. Yeah, they're going out Wednesday. Oh, I'm sorry. That Tuesday is wrong. That should be Wednesday. That's so when you when you was like, "Yep, I'll fix that." Okay. Birthday. That's

um Okay. Um uh new business. Um I do have one thing that um an email came in and actually she had written on the Facebook page too. Um, she sent it not too long ago, but it's um Sandy Angler. Um, I can read my email on here. Um, Sandy Angler. She um is from um a group where they have I don't know why I cancel this out. Um I can't remember who she's she's with. Hold on. Knights of Columbus. Knights of Columbus. Um she had contacted DPW about possibly getting the aluminum cans that were picked up around town. Um and so um I know we had kind of talked before um about separating recycling and um uh recycling and trash. Um, so she she's what she's asking for is that just saying the Knights of Columbus collect aluminum cans and they get money of them that they give to people in need. Um, we may be able to get some volunteers to help as well for beautify lender cleanup. So, um, you know, I know that we've talked in the past about like is there a possibility of separating out like recycling versus, you know, even just to recycle things instead of because there are so many cans that are um, but I wanted to bring this up today to get your

on their cans. Do the cans that they receive have to be clean and and washed? Because if so, then that would be a deciding point. Like we couldn't take all the bags we got. Yes. Let me let me give you some information because I do that. Yeah. The cans that I pick up on the road, I take up to Manchester to the recycling on on Second Street. Okay. and they they take them as is, they put them in a container, they weigh them, and they give you money. Okay. So, you can do that, but they they can be dirty,

but you don't. They never said you have to clean them or anything. Okay. Only cuz like I everything that I recycle has been washed and, you know, rinsed at home. A lot of times I do it, but uh Okay. So, I mean, I think it's the kind of thing that I guess we could tell people that that's a, you know, that would be an option. I'm not sure we could force people to to do that. I just think in the chaos of the cleanup, I'm not sure um asking everybody to do this

to separate them out. No, I I and I think the ease of it would depend on how many people are in a group, right? I think um I think that the e the ease of that I I that's where I'm just thinking about this. Um I personally would would love to do that, you know, separating them out. I think it's we should aluminum cans are the easiest thing to recycle in the world and aluminum holds its value so well. Um so I don't know. I think that's something that just to consider. I I I think it would be well um

you know what you could do. Okay, go ahead. You know you if you instead of the people leaving the bags on the road to have them bring bring them back to where we are and then we could go through them. Well, I'm not doing that. I'm going to go one more. Let them know. I am the recycler of everything and I do pick out when my students throw trash in my recycling bin at school. I pick it out. I can't I I just don't have the bandwidth to go through 106 bags of trash. See, that's what I do when I pick them up. I appreciate that. But see, for me, it's the Knights of Columbus is asking if they want to do that.

So, if we had the bags brought back to Matthew and they wanted to be there to go through them, then they are welcome to do that. However, we don't have the bandwidth to do it for them. We But they're welcome to come participate in our one day in the spring, in our one day in the fall, and they can collect more cans from what we collect. I think that's good. Maybe they can give us a donation. I was just going to say the same exactly thing cuz you know what? I'll start saving all my cans from home. If they're gonna come and collect them and they're going to give us a donation, I will I can fill up Yeah. even just for my Diet Coke cans. Yeah. You know, we had

interesting a pretty interesting pile at Matthew Thornon this year. Yeah. There's a lot of joke but odd things. No, no, no. But I mean the maybe it wouldn't be totally unreasonable to say when you come back with our supplies, could you bring your bags back and put them there? Now we'd have to make sure we get an let the folks at math know. No. Yeah. Okay. Cuz that's a pretty substantial pile. Yeah. They didn't about what was there this year. Well, that's the first time we've had a pile. Usually we've everybody's left them where they were. You always have a small pile there, but this was pretty substantial, right?

Um, and maybe in exchange for maybe we could do a couple things. One is, you know, Knights of Columbus is a pretty good organization, okay? Maybe they could let us come to one of their meetings and do a presentation on what Beautify London is.

Okay? And then as part of that then we could have a working partnership with them. But maybe we could say and could you I could see two ways they could make a donation. One is they they they have folks that they work with and they they're I know that most of their money that they donate goes to support different Catholic um things. Okay. Um, but maybe they could share some money there or depending on what they're fundraising here, maybe they could split whatever they get for the cans they collect from us with us. You know, I think a donation would be bigger than the split.

Yeah. Yeah. See, the whole thing is the amount that you get from weight isn't anything near what you would get if you had a bottle and you're getting 5 cents a can. Yeah. So, okay. But that's a state. I'm assuming these guys know what they're doing. They know the Knights of Columbus knows what they're doing and getting for the king. Where are they located? Is that in Derry? Who's the one on Crystal Live that has that big bin that's like a big where everybody just can go up and dump all their cans in? It's on Crystal Live. That might be there. Yeah, I'm gonna have to I go past them all the time.

Up in Epsom at the park there, they have this great big thing. I think it's for the Boy Scouts and people come and put their cans in. Yeah. And it might be the Boy Scouts or it's one of I'm going to look next time because I'll be over there the other, you know, but Interesting. Did she have I'm sorry. It was a woman a woman that I'm saying. Did she have a title? Was she like the I She didn't say so. I don't know. Usually they're associated with a particular church. Each church has a the Knights of Columbus. Yeah. Yeah. Um Yeah. She doesn't say. I So yeah,

you definitely might want to consider taking a meeting with her, you know, or phone conversation or something. Yeah. And say, "Hey, if we did this, you know, we're we're looking to raise funds. Is there somewhere in the middle that we could Yeah. We're willing to, you know, you can go through all this if you want to do it." Yeah. See, what I do, I I take them I go through my stuff, pick up the cans, if they're really dirty, I wash them. A lot of sometimes there's dirt in them and stuff. and I take them up there and they give me the money and I it goes towards uh missions missions. Yeah, that's wonderful. Yeah. Yeah.

And typically, John, did you go up with a bag of cans or do you have multiple bags of can? Well, I I had a neighbor who has since moved. Yeah. And Oh, he used to drink a lot of beer and a lot of soda. Oh, yeah. And he used to give and I would go my car was filled Wow. with cans. I don't have that anymore. All I have is what I can pick up on the road. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz I don't drink anything. I don't drink anything out of aluminum cans anyway. Yeah. So Huh. Would like cat food cans work? No. No. So it has to aluminum cans. Just aluminum cans from beer.

Yeah. Yeah. And so if when your car was full, what would you get for what would be your the money you take? It might be between five and 10 bucks. Oh. Oh, that's it. All right. Yeah. And see, it's not like if you got 5 cents a can. Okay. Right. Right. If it was five cents a can, right, you'd be making a lot. You're not talking about big bucks. Yeah. But I wonder if Knights of Columbus collects them and then runs them down to somebody like in Massachusetts. They might. Yeah, they could. Yeah. do that is not quite uh because they're not kosher, right? Because they have to say 5 cents. Does it say it on your can? No. No. Because my it says recycle me, but yeah.

Um there's nothing on because it's in New Hampshire. Yeah. You know. Yeah. But if it was I bought this in Vermont, it would say, you know, whatever. I'll contact Sandy and get some more information and see. Um, yeah, they're See, and I use my clean cans from my big pots in my yard. I put those I put layers couple layers of all my empty cans before I put my dirt in. So, I fill up my bucket, my flower buckets, so it's not so heavy to move. And I just kept them last year. I kept them in the thing. I took all the dirt out. When I dumped the dirt, I picked all my cans back out. And Oh,

and okay, cuz it takes up space. You don't have to use as much dirt. Yep. And Yep. Wow. Um um that was a just got out just just for this whole conversation. Think about yourself as a business and what are we talking about? Even though we're all altruists here, okay? We're talking about what's in it for us in order for us to uh give them our cans. What are we going to get from them? And that's exactly what the businesses that might support business beautify London area are thinking. Yeah.

And and that this is the the value proposition that you're trying to put together from some of the stuff we thrown at you. So, but it but it's interesting even people with hearts of gold like us are are asking what's in it for us. Okay. And that's what these businesses do. Thank you. All right. Oh. All right. I think we need to move towards our meeting adjournment. Is there anything else that anybody um just if anybody's interested I I I and I sent this to you already just inventory just so you know what we have on hand. Um nice. Thank you. Okay. Um in terms of stuff. Thank you. And John, you can see that we have we're down to two weeks. Okay. So, wow. That's a wild

and the new vests are nice. So we we did well on those new beds. Well, Larry helped us on that. So Okay. Okay. Can I have an uh I'll make a motion that the meeting be adjourned. I second it. And all in favor? Tonight we are journed.