Beautify Londonderry - Regular Meeting

All right, 703. Let's call this meeting to order. First, on the business, we were going to welcome Karen here today, but she can't be here today, so hopefully... What is Karen's name? Um... I do remember her last name. Her first name is Karen. I can look that up.

I get nervous when anybody says there's a Karen coming to the meeting because, you know, that's a bad connotation.

It's a share. Her last name is Bottenhorn. B-O-T-T-E-N-H-O-R-N. E-N-H-O-R-N. Got it. Yes.

Okay. Okay.

So public comment. We do not have any members of the public here. The only non-committee member here is our wonderful liaison to the town council, Deb Paul. So I don't know if you want to say anything now, Deb, or just kind of be here. Okay, great.

I was telling John, I'm just exhausted. Yeah, I bet. I came because I didn't get home until 1230. I went to bed at 3.30 and I was up at 5.30. And I'd been working on the paper until about an hour from coming home.

Well, we can let her say what she wants. I have nothing to say. Oh, you just want to be here.

Oh, well, you've got questions about that. So why don't you go to that part?

OK. I thought maybe you needed to exit stage left, because you'll be .

I'm going to try to stay up as long as I can, because otherwise I'll wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning. Get your regular schedule on.

You will do that. Well, Beautify Londonderry meetings are always invigorating. They are. I'll get you fired.

They're one of the nicest meetings to go to. even rec is nice to go to they're the ones that i like they are positive they're not doom and gloom all right so next on our agenda approval of the may meeting minutes anybody get a chance to look at them i would like to read them because i don't have word on anything oh is this all there was two sides yeah

Maybe we can make a note to put out the meeting minutes and I'll put out the agenda in PDF so that you can read it at work, right?

Well, no, but it just, it's fine.

Okay.

So these got, all these cleanup dates were all, these are all the ones we've done now.

Yes.

Okay, who were the bluebirds or the somebody cheerleaders or blue devils? Blue Lions. Blue Lions? Yes. Because they're not, I know they're not a sponsor of ROAD, but when did they do?

It was a Sunday, maybe three weeks ago.

In May, right?

Yeah, somewhere in there, yeah. Might have been after this meeting.

Blue Lions, did you say? Blue Lions, yeah. L-I-O-N-S, like regular Lions? Okay, thank you.

That ended up being kind of a small one. They were up by North School, and they had maybe half a dozen girls.

Yeah, but that's, you know.

No, no, you're right.

Now that I have all this, now I will put a thing in saying, hey, these are all the sponsor road folks, so you'll get an email from me. Sounds good to me. Okay.

Thank you, Beth.

We don't need it for a month.

Question. The football team postponed until September. Are they going to be able to do anything in September? Will they be practicing and playing football?

It was Coach's suggestion because he was going in for surgery. Oh, okay. And he wanted to be there.

If he's not going to be there, I can understand that. It's going to be a tough time for them, I would think.

No, he was having the surgery done. He probably just had it done. And he seemed to be fine with doing whatever. I mean, he didn't give me details or anything.

Well, it was September. It's only a couple hours they have to do for us.

Well, and they usually do this Sunday. Do they? Yeah.

So I don't think he does practices on Sunday.

Any other issues, guys?

I don't know what this word is. Welcome to Londonderry. The ball cap.

Spiniels. Those are the tops, the balls on the tops. Oh, okay.

And they look like a baseball cap. And if I sound educated, it's because somebody told me that.

Okay. All right, then I won't say you've got a spelling error there.

Finial is a great crossword puzzle. That is a good crossword puzzle. He's just trying to impress us.

I-E-L. Sounds like something out of the Wicks of the Mountains. The Finials. Yeah.

A wordsmith.

Okay. I am caught up.

Mm-hmm.

So I make a motion to approve the minutes.

I second.

With that small addition. Yeah.

Well, I'm just, yeah. This was just from my board to put a thing in the paper. Excellent. Okay. Second.

All in favor? Aye. And they're approved. Excellent.

By the way, have you pointed, Beth?

I have not appointed Beth. Beth, you are now appointed a voting member. Okay. Since we do not have enough voting members. Excellent. Thank you.

Are you down members? Like, you need volunteers?

Yes. Oh, yes. So there were, I guess, two members appointed. So we have those two full member slots available. And you don't want the full member slots? And then we have an alternate member slot available. So we have a total of three slots available. There were two people voted in by the council. One person decided that she couldn't make the commitment for family obligations. And then the other person, so just the past two meetings has not, or this meeting and the last meeting has not been able to attend. So the chair will reach out to her and confirm whether or not that she's going to be able to make this commitment. And if not, there were some people that we met during the cleanup in the spring who indicated interest. So we can reach back out to them and just see.

I was going to ask you, do you keep in touch with, never mind that, but Kirsten, when people apply and then you don't get them, like they're They're in a bank, right? Some sort of a talent bank thing? Yeah. Like to get their email and say, you know, at one time you were interested, are you still interested? Right.

I've got a question. Yes. I got an email from Gary Stewart.

Oh, okay.

He apologized because he wanted to be part of the last cleanup.

Yeah.

But something came up, a health situation. And the way my laptop is operating, does anybody have his telephone number? You guys were on the committee with him.

I don't think I have his phone number. I don't. I wonder if Lynn Wiles does.

If Lynn doesn't have, you know, one of the young ladies at the DPW lab. Right. Because he was in the oil company.

I will call him back and see if I can get him to take one of those members or all of them.

Okay. Yeah, that would be great.

Because we always had a great relationship.

Yeah.

He was interested, so maybe, you know, even if it's just alternate.

I have his email. I have that. You have that, okay.

I was just thinking there's something in. Never mind.

It's gone already. It's okay.

Well, the other thing I was thinking about was maybe throwing something up on London Dairy Dads to see if we could get another guy in.

Yeah.

Okay. And just maybe somebody that can lift more than John and I can lift. Yeah. Okay. You're on board with that, brother? That would be great. Yeah, just to say, I was thinking about that this morning.

Yeah, that's excellent. Good. Okay, next on the agenda, welcome to Londonary Science Update.

The signs, the painter told me that the signs will be done by the 29th of this month. Wonderful. Okay. And I'll alert Dave Wally. Dave's got the, then we also, I also got a re-quote, which I'll sign off on, on the post that they're painting. Okay. And they painted already all of the hardware.

What did he say, June 29th? Yeah. Yeah. The painting done. Yeah.

So and then we'll have to work out with Justin the painter.

Okay.

But I think we're in pretty good shape.

Okay. Excellent.

So I think the bottom line on this thing, the project is going to end up costing... a tick over $9,000. Okay.

With the four signs.

Four signs, the post, painting, the brackets and stuff. There was something else. No, I think that's it. Oh, and they're going to return the post that wasn't, the sign that was not fixable, and DPW is going to take that and put that over in their garage somewhere or something. Oh, cool. So it won't go in the trash.

Does that include the sponsorship signs? No.

Sponsorship signs are a different deal and we'll have to look at the letter here. We've got some folks that have made donations already. Sponsorship signs will be different and we'll We'll get those up shortly after we get the signs of it. Okay. And then we need to know exactly what, for example, your donor wants their sign to say. Yeah. Okay. What name they want. And then, I don't know if we have any others. Oh, the police made a donation.

What about the ones that donated initially? Will those be taken down or will those continue?

No, those will come down.

Okay.

Yeah. ACTUALLY, WHAT WE PROBABLY SHOULD DO IS THE ONES THAT ARE STILL AROUND IS TAKE THOSE DOWN AND PRESENT THOSE TO THEM AND GIVE THEM AN OPPORTUNITY TO RE-UP.

YEAH. WE COULD DO THAT. GOOD CALL. YEAH. OKAY. NEXT ON OUR AGENDA IS THE FUNDRAISING LETTER. SO I HAVE THIS GRAPH, AND IT'S DOUBLE SIDED. Very nice color. Let me know your thoughts.

You did a lot of work.

You know, I created a smaller version because I was going to say you kind of want to consolidate it. Yeah. And I forgot to send it to you, and it's sitting on my desk. I'll send it to you tomorrow. Okay. I apologize.

You know, that was my first reaction was two pages maybe too long. But by the same token, I like this better than that one-page version I did because it gave a little bit more oversight and doesn't assume that people know what we do. And it spreads it beyond recovering the signs. So I have some suggestions, but they're all like punctuation, that kind of stuff. I like the way the graph.

I think there are two letters, two separate letters, but that's me.

The graph on the back, I like the way that's set up. And I'm okay with the four tiers. You added the bronze, the $100. I added the bronze, yeah, just because. No, that's fine.

We could shrink it. I mean, the font is, you know, it's fairly large. And I think it's at, like, what is the spacing right now? You know, we could shrink the spacing of it. It's at 1.15 spacing for the text.

I mean, it's long, but it's easy to read. But it's complete. It's complete, and it's... I like the 1.5 because it makes it easier to read for me, personally. Just my own, where was I? Wait, where does that go? Well, what is the actual...

I'm going to be a jerk here.

No, you? No. Just an exercise we used to do all the time.

So what is this letter supposed to accomplish? What is this letter? Is it supposed to educate people? Is it supposed to bring in sponsors? Sponsors. But this is what I'm trying to explain. I got yelled at from the YMCA years ago when I was sitting on there. They specialized in fundraising and certain trigger words. And that's what I did in my revision of this, not knowing what you were trying to do. I thought it was just solely sponsorship. And so you give a splash like this of who you are and what you do. And the rest of it is really, and the who you are and what you do came at the end. Because the mission of this is to say why you need them and why they need to add, why they need to come in. Right. Now we got you why you need to, we want you here, and then we're going to say, and you know why? We do all this too. Yeah. I don't know. The lady explained it to me. I used it a couple times. I thought it worked. It's a folder I got. They hand it out and I kept it and I referenced it a lot.

So what you're talking about is a very simplified situation of what we're looking for. I was wondering if you did something like that and then along with it did the brochure to show what we do, but had one page just to get the money.

You can have multiples of these depending on who you're broaching. If somebody already knows you and knows what you do, you have... letter A for somebody who kind of knows a little bit about you, never pulled the trigger, or who is a silver, and you want to jump them up to a gold, like that's the second version. And then the third version is just, hey, you've done this platinum before, you're ready to do it again, and we're ready to recognize, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So because it depends on where they are in their giving, you know, like, I'll shut up. Just food for thought. I'll share what I have, and if you don't like it, you don't like it. If you like it, fine. If you like a paragraph, take it. You know, throw it in the barrel.

We get a lot of charitable letters, and some of them, they go on and on and on. What are they looking for? That's why if you did something like that, and we have a brochure that tells who we are, which is very nice, but what we're looking for here is the donation.

Money.

Quick and simple.

Right.

I'm not saying this is wrong. It's not wrong.

It's very good. I'm not saying it's wrong at all. It's just, that's why I was asking, what is it?

to get donations.

Right, and why would someone want to donate to you guys as opposed to the other hundred that just came through the door? What's going to set you apart from all the others?

I mean, this, I mean, it does explain who we are.

So, like, the why. What makes the why better than the Boys and Girls Club? We spent four hours in a room to find out the one thing that makes us better than the Boys and Girls Club? We cater to the family. They only cater to children. We cater to the whole family, seniors, grandparents, kids, the whole family as a totality, whereas they just cater to the kids. So that was the one critical thing. Because everybody's going for that pot. We had to brainstorm. I mean, it was four hours of figuring out that one thing that made us different. That's where we focused on.

So Deb, looking at what you're suggesting, if you struck from dear neighbor down to the first two paragraphs, struck that, came in and that next thing where it says to accomplish this, struck to accomplish this and just said, Beautify Londonderry is asking for your support. That would be your opening line.

It could be.

And then all of everything under those two paragraphs would stay the same, maybe a couple of word changes. We have multiple levels of sponsorship available. Slide the graph over and then maybe shorten the thank you paragraph a little bit and see if you could get this to fit on one page.

That's just my thought because you want to capture them. You've got a small window to capture them. before they get bored. But I think you really need to think about, and this should be like rethinking your whole, you know how you got your trash barrel? And you know how Nike has the Just Do It? You guys need something. What is those things called? Tagline. For your group, what is your actual mission? Pick up trash? Is it more than that? What is it? And I have thoughts, but I'm going to let you guys say what your thoughts are. Do you know what I mean? If you had to summarize what it is that makes Beautify Londonderry Beautify Londonderry in a sentence.

Well, the closest I've come to it, and I think we've used this before, Joy, is the opening sentence of the thing is basically... Our overall mission.

So if we could, so maybe we take that statement as our opening statement, then strike the rest of those paragraphs and then say, Beautify London Area is asking for your support.

But that statement is a great statement, but it's loosey-goosey. It is, yes. It's loosey-goosey. It can be interpreted in many different ways. It's a committee, it's to create and maintain a welcoming environment. What does that mean? It's interpretational, a welcoming environment. Are you talking about the outside environment? Are you talking about inclusion? What do you... You know what I'm trying to say.

Don't we match that, though, in the name of our organization, the way she's got the logo there, the Beautify Londonderry logo?

a welcoming outdoor i think if we had outdoor environment that would be a little a little more specific i mean i don't know what i'm going with this yeah because welcoming the environment could be like anything right yeah i'm walking into a forest okay but what's welcoming to you may not be welcoming to me i could look at a forest and say it's horrifying there's mosquitoes and tick

and sway me and do all kinds of stuff. Plants that make me itch. But at the end of the day, the mission is to what? What is your mission?

So that our town looks really nice. I mean, are you putting up baskets of plants? So that our town looks really nice.

What does that mean?

I don't know. I understand what you're saying. No, I totally get what you're... You know, it's like... It's an exercise.

That's all it is. When you first said, what is, you know, I was like, well, I want a town I can drive through without having to lock my doors. You know, but that's not Beautify Londonderry. I don't want to see.

I'm just being a jerk to be To make you guys, so when you're recruiting people, it also helps to say, this is what we do. So like when I say to the green team, I talk about.

We do pick up trash, right? So we do pick up trash.

That's a major operation.

And that's it, right? We pick up trash. And the signs. So, yeah, and the signs.

That's the welcoming side, the signs.

Actually. Would it be legitimate to say that our mission is to maintain a welcoming roadside environment for all who live, work, and visit Londonderry? Because everything we do is cleaning.

Roadside. Well, it's cleaning.

It's the Welcome to Londonderry signs and roadside.

It's picking up trash.

And also the sponsor programs.

Yeah.

It's all roadside.

Well, the sponsor programs is the tool. in which you make your roads clean. So that's the tool. So the mission then is to rid Londonderry of trash, unsightly trash.

It doesn't have to be trash, because there's also, I think, a future desire to, under the sponsor spot thing, to have... Do you see where I'm going with this? Do you understand?

But it is roadside.

But I'm just trying to get it so that people understand that there's more than just picking up roadside trash. And that's what we're trying to figure out. How do we say that? How do we go to somebody and say, we're more than just picking up the trash? So you said to me, we do the trash. And you said you had places for people to sponsor, to beautify? Like, how did you pick these?

Like the Circles on Otterson or some other project.

Is that you? Or I thought Paul Margolin did one of them.

No? It's sort of us. Okay. One way or the other, it's us.

We have a sponsor that sponsor a road or an area

I understand that. Because that was the initial thing. When Chris came up with the idea, that's what his thing was. He couldn't stand that every spring the snow would reveal the winter's worth of garbage that hid beneath it. It sure does. And that was one of the things. And he broached that to, I think it was, Mark Oswald used to do like coffee with a counselor and he broached him and he said, you know What can I what can you do for me to push this forward and then that started this whole thing?

I mean, is it did you say welcoming clean environment? I Don't know if we have to say You're not roadside. I don't know.

No. No, I didn't say picking up roadside welcoming roadside Roads are welcoming roadside environment okay or appearance or something like that but because everything we do is outside around that yeah and that doesn't restrict us necessarily to trash because it could cover the signs it could cover um the future sponsor spot program the the selected plantings we know we've talked about that so do you guys have a list of those spots i was just gonna say do we have besides like

businesses that are on this list here that do their own sponsor do we have a list of other areas in the town that are up for being beautified we haven't moved that forward i don't think as of yet because we have everything else on the table right no no no right but if we had even a glimpse at how many places do we have, how many opportunities do we have available? Because, like, Otterson, you might be taking on part of it, and maybe it's the committee. Somebody around, I think it's Wyndham, on Moore Road, they have a sign that's, thank you, veterans, and they have a display. I don't know who does it, but I think it's Wyndham. So, I mean, like, there's times where it's like, Well, it wouldn't be in the parking lot or like in the middle of store, you know, like businesses like Home Depot and those entryways because that's usually by... Well, I mean, the project could be 102 if there was a meridian down 102.

Would that be something Beautify Londonderry would... Because technically the state says we're responsible. So you know the circle that's coming in on 28 and Stonehenge? Yeah. Yeah. The town is responsible for cleaning that circle.

What if we said this? Is that going to be a grass style, you know? I don't know whether.

What if we said this to me?

I'm just saying those are the, so that, to clarify those things, because now this, moving forward, you can work with people like a green team who can say, well, these are the best plants to plant. They're gonna do that. Do you know what I'm saying?

No, no and and frankly one of the things and we didn't get to that because frankly we don't have a cash but You know like up in Bedford if you drive down that main drag there they have plantings up and down that main drag Merrimack now has a similar area Allenstown over the bridge.

They got those planters, but my point is is if you have this a big picture and somebody or something, or you work with a couple of other groups, like conservation, like the Green Team, and you work together. You do a proposal. Now you can go to the casino and say, we have this grand picture. This is what we want to do. This is what we're looking for funding. Do you know what I'm trying to like?

So I like that. I'm not saying you're going to get it. We need to get something out like now to get started, I think, because we need to really start building momentum. And so I really like that idea to, you know, maybe in September, October, we're ready to go with that. But right now, like we need to start building momentum.

just get something out the door so i'd rather like let's like whatever we need to do to make this clear and concise to people i got an answer to it i think okay to maintain a clean roadside environment appearance or appearance to maintain a clean roadside. I like that.

I say appearance instead of... I think appearance is looking, and the other one is... That's concise and tells what we like. Environmentally friendly, I think. I don't know. Okay.

Environment brings you down into the sciences, and like you said, environmental... What do you mean by environment?

You know, the only...

Right.

John, I don't think I would use the word clean, because it doesn't capture future plantings, and it doesn't capture science, okay? How about appealing?

Oh, appealing's a nice word. Appealing.

Appealing's a very nice word.

That's captures... Or aesthetic.

I'm trying to think of other words. Aesthetic.

go with the young people and do Vibe. I'm just kidding.

Well, I love the whole thing like that. That's the whole idea of that agricultural committee that I want to form, which I'm hoping it all falls under.

What did you say? Appealing, roadside...

to create and maintain an appealing roadside environment for all who live, work, and listen. We didn't want to use environment.

Appearance. Oh, appears.

Appealing roadside appearance.

Appearance is kind of, yeah, I'm waffling. I mean, I like the environment because Like that's the outdoors. That's what we do.

Appealing, roadside.

Appearance is kind of just like, oh, they're just superficial. To me, that's the connotation. It's superficial.

Where we're trying to really just like... What are other words for some sort of visual? Roadside. That's why I said aesthetics, because you're making it pretty. But you're saying that's too superficial?

To me, it just feels... Madam Chair, if I could suggest, maybe what we need to do is... Because I think the consensus I'm hearing is too long and maybe more focused into the fundraising faster and reducing some of the stuff beyond the mission statement in the opener. Maybe now that you've done the hard work of drafting this thing, we could all take a crack at shortening this up and send you suggestions and see if we can reach a consensus there rather than trying to work through this for the rest of the meeting.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

Not your fault. We are all here.

No, I think that these conversations are good.

See, I think if you don't constantly change and evolve your committees and boards, they stagnate. And that doesn't bring in new people, new excitement, new levels of interest. That's what happens, and that's why you've got to constantly change. Like, doing the same thing over and over and over. Oh, it's that again. Yeah, it's that. You want to kind of say it's that plus this. That plus that. You know what I mean? Like, changing it up is always good. Even if it's this much. It's better than...

So maybe what we could do is have everybody hack this over for the next week or so and then email you the end result of that. Does that sound good, John? Does that sound like a plan?

The way my thing is going, what's going on, I don't know. You can do it by hand, John.

Drop it in my mailbox. In your mailbox?

In your mailbox?

Well, it's not illegal to post.

It's illegal?

To send stuff to her?

Oh, to actually physically mail it, but to just open the mailbox and put it in her mailbox is illegal.

You can't just put it there.

You cannot touch the mailbox. That's a federal violation. You can go to prison for that.

I just totally learned something brand new today. I've broken the law many times.

So what's your home address?

18 white planes.

The other thing I suggest is once we get this in, Joy, and you have a chance to look at everything, we not only let Deb look at it again, but also Larry Casey, the seed volunteer.

Did we determine a list of who this was going to be sent to yet?

Oh, yeah. No, we have not. Do we want to take a few minutes? I don't think we have a ton left on the agenda. Do we want to take five minutes and just do a quick brainstorm? I can create a... Of who to send it to? Of who to send it to, yeah.

What happened to the list that we started with last year of different businesses around the town? Do we still have that list?

I have some of them. I jotted it down. I never put it in the minutes. We had to be a little careful because some of them were on Larry's list and we can't do anything on Larry's list.

I think to come up with the list we need to have Larry's list with us so we can... Larry's is public.

They gave it out last Wednesday. No, no, no.

I'm just saying, though, that when we come up with a list, like if we were to say a bunch today, we don't have Larry's list in front of us to be able to say, nope, that's on Larry's list. Nope, they're on Larry's list. That's all I meant. So we need to have Larry's list.

The situation that we talked about and I talked to John about, is that a workable and legal situation? I mean, it could save us a lot of all this if that was possible and feasible to get connected somehow with the casino.

Anybody can do it. Alert did it. Anybody can do it. The VFW does it.

Well, I know the American Legion did it. Very successful. Is that an official town committee? What?

The Legion. What's their status? They're separate. They're like us. They're accepted by the town, but they're on their own.

See, we're now an official town committee. Does that knock us out?

But you need to have, when you're filling out the form, you'll see on it, they want to know what you're doing. So you need to have projects, kind of like CIP. Think of it that way. you need to have these projects. And so that's why I'm trying to get you down this path of bigger picture. How are you going to get there? You need funding. Okay, well, we need funding. We know that. This is the bigger picture. These are the little steps that get us to the end.

What I'm saying is,

I don't think so. We've got to do all of this. It's all going to work together.

Okay, so Deb, in terms of what we need to do, you mentioned a form.

I don't know what you guys want to do.

No, we have a couple things that I know we want to do. One of them is we've talked about these sponsor spot programs. making donations to individuals that want to do that kind of stuff.

And so you're going to want a listing of all those spots, who owns them, how it's going to work.

We also talked about, and we haven't discussed it in a long time, we're only getting four of our signs done. The fifth sign was fatally flawed. We would like to approach the state about putting a sign on 102 when you come off of 93 North. There's a section of state land there that's basically vacant. And putting maybe even a little bit of a larger- So that would be DOT? Yeah, it's all under their DOT. And we would approach them, see if they would allow that, and they might, okay? Talk to Dave. Dave would work with us to figure out who to deal with.

I think you have to find out if they've got specific rules. We may not be able to get assignments like that wooden one. They might say, no, we don't want a wooden one. Our requirements are these metal. I don't know what they're going to say.

No, I understand that. But in terms of just throwing projects at you that we haven't moved forward on because we don't have any money. Right. That would be two projects and just based on the experience with the wooden signs and looking at, we looked at a replacement cost just to do, they don't do the wooden signs anymore. Those are about $6,500 a piece for one of those signs. I would suggest if we were going to do that thing on 102, we probably want something that's a little bit bigger because it's going to be set back further from the road. So you're probably looking at $10,000 by the time you're all done.

Okay. I understand what you want to do. The state's going to look at your application and they're going to say, what is compelling about this? That's how they pair. And that's why I'm trying to get you to get to the part of being more, what's the word I want to say? Somebody help me here. Tying it to key words, like you were talking about kind of sustainability stuff, environmentally clean stuff, like you want to tie it to those things I mean I understand what you're saying and I like what you're saying and I am I'm just saying what's going to make us stand out to get that grant because there's no oh grant from your not from me from the casino we're talking about right right oh okay what's going to push you up the they've got you're going to think that all these people are pushing things They're going, we get scholarships, we've got a wind project, we're taking care of veterans, we're taking care of elderly. So what is it? Do you see what I'm trying to say?

Do you understand what I'm saying? So what I'm thinking of is that if it is... I think we could do for both of these types of really major funds that we need for the sponsored spot and for the sign, we can really focus on native plantings and really creating, you know, the pollinator spaces for Londonderry and introduce the idea that if we identify spaces that are all native. Right, native and perennials.

Removal of bittersweet. Yeah. which helps prevent power outages, you know, trees from falling in the road. This is a major project. We want to take that on along with. So that kind of gets, you know, like they do in big government. They say, we want this, but we don't have 20 other things underneath it to make it sound like, you know, it's kind of the same.

You did one with Green Team, right?

no you know you didn't do a casino no not yet not yet because i'm going to do it i have a bigger picture in my head i wish i could really project it so the reason i want to put together an advocate at the agricultural committee is because nobody's ever come out and said it but i think from listening to the listening sessions with the master plan, not once, not twice, two master plans, but for the three master plans that I've been involved in and the Best Londonderry, the Best Towns initiative, every single one of them is Londonderry wanted to be this farmer, artisan type of community with all the city amenities. They wanted these things, but they wanted the city amenities. So we have all the city amenities, that's already there. agricultural artisan sort of thing so and that to me is what makes community. That brings people together to do things. Like you clean up programs. They come out, they meet their neighbors, they clean, they feel good about it, they're invested in their town, they're invested in their community, they made it better. So that keeps them tied here. People tend to stay more as opposed to, I'm going to come, have my kids go to the school, then I'm going to get the heck out of here and go someplace else. No, you want people to come and stay and have grandchildren and stay here and that sort of thing. So that agricultural committee is the tie to town resources. And then you have branches underneath it. So they would maybe do projects with conservation, but mainly trails. Green Team, Beautify Londonderry, to put in pocket parks, nature parks, like you just said, the roadways. Again, these are things that are aesthetic.

They are.

Blending not only nature, but art. And that's how that all kind of works. And so you were talking about stuff, and I'm thinking, how do we do this so that right now, The Rail Trail is a nonprofit. Whether they want to house your thing, they can do it. It's called a fiscal agent. You can look up the word. Any nonprofit can be a fiscal agent to another group. So a newspaper, I'll use Hippo, for example, is still a for-profit business, but he goes after grants, and he has a fiscal agent, be it the New Hampshire Charities or Nacke Loeb School or another group. And he says, I want to go for this grant. And he tells them why. He writes out the grant, how he wants it to work, and he hands it to them. They go on the computer, apply it the way he wants. If they get awarded the grant, they take, so say it's a $20,000 grant, as the agent, the people who took the time to put it in and use their account number, they take one percent to ten percent of that money that was awarded and then they say we got this grant to fund different things and we're going to put it towards this so now they've fulfilled their obligation as a non-profit of getting money in putting it towards a project, because they can't keep it. But they can keep a percentage of it. So it becomes a tax thing. And the reason why it's better, like I was talking to another group that wanted to become a... It's a pain in the ass. It's a pain to have to file all these things, talk about all the money that you've got. It's a lot of accounting that you get into paying for. And so it becomes work to do. So that's why they want that percentage, because... The type of nonprofit you are, you have to get rid of so much money or it has to be allotted for a larger specific, kind of like the town, when they put something in a fund that says it's for this and this only.

Is there a specific application for this?

No. Well, yeah, there is. I mean, once you figure out what you want, then you can... That's right.

One, is there an application to go to the casino?

Yeah, there is. Joy can just Google search it right now. It's called New Hampshire Casino Charities. And you just got to fill out all this stuff and they'll ask you for your, your, oh God.

Tax ID number. Thank you.

Tax ID number. I'm sorry.

And, you know, what is your project?

And that would tell us what they're looking for and how we can comply to it.

Well, it might not let you get all the way down without having something already. Great.

Unless this is filled in, you're not moving forward. Well, we can take a look.

Yeah, take a look.

We can take a look at it because it will give us some insight into what we need. Exactly. Yeah. How to better...

When I was driving out to Michigan, or I was in either Michigan, oh, I was in Ohio.

Ohio?

I don't, yeah, I think it was Ohio. The way they do the bridges, I said, wouldn't it be nice, since they're going to be doing that, put Londonderry right on the bridge. They have them on the town that you're driving.

Oh, yeah, they're in the cement on the sides of the bridge.

All different types of... Or Euclid, or... Yeah, they're really nice, and they're... I don't know, when you're on the highway, it pops out. It's Londonderry. Maybe I need to turn down that road and see what they've got. And that goes into beautifying and bringing what we're trying to do.

What we're trying to do is promote a clean, welcoming place to live. And we do that by picking up the road signs and then the signs advertise it. to get people to say, this is the place I want to live. This is a good place to live.

Right, but that all couples in with the trails, which make it fun to walk, something to do. It couples in with the recreation. You've got, you know, the guy I'm pushing to put in there, easy to take care of, low maintenance, a couple of bocce courts, a couple of horseshoe courts, things like that, so that people at Town Hall watch you sit out there, watch a softball game, come back to work. It's all kind of a big picture thing. It really is.

Okay, so what's our action steps here?

Okay, so our action steps are we are going to, within the next week, everyone take a look and then reply back just to me. I'm going to BCC you guys all so you don't accidentally reply all um but to reply just to me with um with ideas um on how to um and then I'll take all of those I will consolidate um for a for a draft that I'll send back out um and then for a second second look draft I'll send back out I'll send to Larry Casey um with that with that draft um and also in the meantime um I did find the website where you can find the sponsors for Concert on the Common. So I'm going to ask you all to take a look at that website and then think about people that we can also send to. So we're not doubling up with them, but other places in town. I did notice there's not a lot of real estate agents on there. So we had indicated that that might be a good, maybe like a cohort of businesses that would be...

I contacted them and she was out of she was in Paris and I tried a couple of times and

I can still try to go back and get that, because they supported, they're one of the supporters and one of the scientists.

They've always been very, very good with supporting.

I will try with them again, because I have a contact with them, too. Great, John. So maybe.

I also know Andrew Whitehead over at EMAX is very good with donating and sponsoring. They're inside Woodmont now.

What about...

I hit bald ones up.

Bald ones is now a donor too.

Yeah, but they got... And they were non-profit. They have to donate.

Oh, really?

So, yeah. And I'll tell you, most of what's happened now, big companies, they all got these pages where you look for community... uh, invest, not investments, but charitable community things, and you can fill them out, and it's like banks, mortgage companies, they all got them, you just gotta fill them out, you gotta, somebody,

I've done a couple of those.

They're hard.

It's not so much the hard. It's we hit a roadblock. I just did with waste management. We're now a 501C.

But if you had a fiscal agent, a fiscal agent contract, you would say, here's the green teams. You just use our ID number. Okay.

That's interesting. That's interesting because that's been a roadblock a couple times.

Look. Look up and read how it all works.

Yeah, I got a note.

But that's how that works. And, yeah, I have a vested interest in it. I'm not going to lie. The green team would love 1% of what you got in because we're trying to grow the farmer's market. We're trying to grow some of the trail enhancements. So those funds help us because our projects are a little different. I mean eventually we'll start going. And that's why I would love to see a couple of joint meetings with like the trails, conservation, like that beach project. I would love to see. We paid all the engineering to get a beach put in. We have all the engineering done. And Scoby Pond. They would move it from where it is. We had a big chunk of land put in a road. You could have a little an actual place to park, to fish, to put a pier. I mean, it really would be, I mean, we don't have that much in this town that would be exciting like that. But that's what I'm talking about. The other thing is, you know, when you run the rail trails and you go under the two highways, you could put in a graffiti wall under those things. And now graffiti walls are great because they stay up for so many months. The kids don't touch them. They're done by kids. And they do it up in Lebanon. They do it in Nashua. They do it in different times. And the kids get to... And it adds to the walk on the trail.

That's on the trail, okay. Yeah, you know when you walk in... Have you asked them, though?

I asked EOT. And they said it was okay. But I had to get the funds because right now the walls are that... variegated walls. So you'd have to put, you'd have to get enough money to put a flat wall for them to... Did rail trails people are okay with that? Well, they don't, that's really not, for them, it's DOT. It's DOT. I talked to the...

But it's above their trail, no?

It's something they're walking by. They don't own it. I mean, they're going in there right now and painting over the graffiti. Like, it's nasty graffiti, not good graffiti. It's a way to deter with nasty graffiti by putting in these things that become art.

Well, the schools can make murals and things. Because when you're going on South Road in Derry, and it says, mural by the Avernac.

Yeah, and they've got space stuff and pink little stuff. And they don't tend to graffiti it because a kid did it. But while you walk in, it gives you a sense of, you know, oh, I'll meet you under the bridge at the murals, you know, or whatever. It's just different thoughts. These are different thoughts. And in between those bridges, there's a big piece of dirt that we could ask the state to just hose with the supersede, the lupins, daisies, whatever. Then you could sell it to those kids at the art class and say, let's take a drive to the dump. We want to get rid of metal out of our weigh station. Let's get some metal and make some wind. window sculptures to plant. Now you've got graffiti, flowers, wind sculptures on your trail, what did you create? A destination. Focal points, the things that are in the town to go do. We don't have beaches, we don't have a lake, we really don't have, what do we have? Think about it.

I agree. Our outdoor, we do have that. Rail trail is lovely, but having more of a, yeah.

Am I making any sense?

Or am I just crazy?

No, no. Well, both.

Thank you.

That's right.

It totally makes sense.

I love these long-term ideas. Yeah, for sure. But those are the kinds of projects.

I even talked to Jeff at the Aviation Museum. Now the rail trail goes by there.

Yeah.

Put the nice mural there with the history of flight. Have trucks there, food trucks. Have a couple of wins.

Now you're walking, what are you going to do?

Are you going to stop, have an ice cream, maybe go into Louisiana?

And they do the 5K now, too.

But things like that make it more of a destination. Reason to walk there. You have a reason to walk. Ride your bike. Oh, I want to go there because I know my favorite taco truck's there or there's a great ice cream truck there. Now sit and watch some planes. And it's... It's stuff to do. We don't have stuff to do.

Okay, I have to pack up my classroom. That is what I've been working on. That is what's overwhelming me. So I am going to draft up this email to send to, and Deb, what's your, is it depaul? It's just depaul. Depaul, Londonderry. Okay, it came up. Londonderrynh.com. So I have an email draft that I'll send to everybody out that, you know asks for comments on the letter John I'm sending it to your email but just in case doesn't get there just use that for the handwritten on on here I also I'm putting in the email a link to the find the concerts on the common sponsors page so you can look through that and I'm putting the link for the New Hampshire application for casino money I think it's the right page I'm not entirely sure but it looks like it's the right page so if you guys have time during the next like week or so to look at that stuff that would be excellent the fundraising letter for sure please send drafts and changes within the next week just to me so we'll move on to new business, I clearly didn't even finish my thought under that new business. So I was thinking about BL events during summer, and in particular the concert on the Common. Or did I find? Oh, I did finish my thoughts. It didn't print out. It didn't print out on this one.

It's printed out on yours, though. Okay.

It printed out fine on John's.

I'll talk about, I did the first concert on the Common. One person, a senior citizen, came up to the table with Betsy and me, and put a dollar on the table and said she wanted to basically thank us for everything she was doing with the Londonderry signs.

Oh, one dollar.

Yeah, and I gave out six or eight stickers to little kids. But there was no action at all on the hats. It had nothing to do with the hats. It had nothing to do with the price. We set up a nice table so it looked attractive and everything. It's just not the right event to try to sell hats at. People are there for a different experience. And if they're going to spend They're going to spend it in the food truck, which, by the way, was excellent. The lions were on one side of me, and some fellow who had a construction business that he was promoting was on the other side of me. It's just not the right environment. In talking about that with my wife a little bit, who, by the way, I told you this already when we talked earlier today, but I understand that tomorrow is Betsy's birthday.

I thought it was today.

No, tomorrow.

Thank you very much.

And by the way, did you tell her, did you say something that she was 73 or 74? Somebody said that to her.

No, I just thought it was today, and I just said it every birthday on Facebook.

You did good. No, somebody else said happy 74th or something like that, and she was going to kill him. But anyways, tomorrow night I understand that I'm being dragged over there to learn how to line dance. Fabulous. And then we're going to stay for the thing. So things that she gets me to do. So what I noticed is there's a young lady that sells popcorn at that event every year, and she donated a Concert on the Common t-shirt. that they awarded when they did the raffle at the end of the thing. Why don't we contribute? I think there's nine events left. I'll double check. Why don't we contribute nine hats to them to give out when they do the raffle tickets? That way we'll get a little pub out of the thing, maybe get a couple of hats circulating, and we'll see what goes on.

From the man who said we are not giving away one single hat.

I know, I know. But I had to sit there through all the Fleetwood Mac stuff It was good stuff, right? It was good stuff. And the sandwich, oh, my God. They had a grilled cheese sandwich with, like, chopped short ribs on it. I was in hard heaven with the sandwich. Oh, my God. I think one of the reasons I didn't sell any hats is I had, like, cheese dripping down my shirt.

They're like, well, I'm talking to that guy. Well, it's not that you're just giving them away. This is becoming a promo for you. So this is not, that's a promo.

Yeah, I like that.

And if you want that to happen, the reason I asked you to bring these is I'll bring nine hats when I go tomorrow, if that's what the group wants to do.

Are you all set on the concert as far as staffing?

I think we're just not going to get done. We'll just get the hats out. It's a lot easier.

Because they're there for one thing.

And again, John, it had nothing to do with the hats, the price. It's not the venue. Yeah, it's just not the venue. It's not the venue itself. And they had, I think Larry said they had 700 people there for the Fleetwood Mac thing, which is pretty crowded. He says the biggest one is for the Beatles. About 1,000.

Are we almost done? I'd say they're five. Sorry, I'm done. I'm sitting, so I need to...

The only thing I want to ask and request is a joint meeting with the green team to go over some stuff and how we can better work together. That's what I would request. That would be great. And maybe even pull rail trail people in. Yeah, that would be great. I think it would be really beneficial for all of us.

So a kind of an informal, formal... Deb, when are your meetings usually? Or would the green team be amenable to coming here? Yeah, we just do little Zooms.

We don't really, we just Zoom and kind of text each other. We don't have, we don't phone.

Okay. So maybe we put that on the agenda for next meeting. I just want to invite you to.

It was hard for me on a Tuesday, and now it's CIP on Tuesdays too.

putting these, like, say, the Green Tea and the Rail Team all together, and then apply for funding?

Keep applying for your funding. I'm talking about bodies, ideas, connections.

But I wonder if that would be more effective.

It could be.

Well, we could even do something informal. That's not a formal meeting.

I don't know where it's going to go, but I think it's going to go somewhere good.

I think, like, just a brainstorming session between, like, members of the group would be fabulous.

I think you're all like-minded people. Yeah. Yeah. And y'all want kind of the same thing. Yeah. Well, great. And as you just said, the more people, what is it, many hands? Yeah. Make something. Light work.

Yeah. Light work. That's what I'm trying to get at. It's like, yeah.

Because the other part is that we're trying to say, well, we use the native plants and, you know, so we're kind of.

And we have three master gardeners. Yeah. You know what I mean?

We're kind of encroaching onto their territory of, you know. But I think that's where we're together. Yeah, absolutely. We need to work together on that because it would be power numbers, perhaps.

Okay, so I will put something out and let's get us like not an official meeting but like a brainstorming session that's just getting together. I want to also point out that in our summer events that Old Home Day is August 15th. Saturday that's our Saturday event so we hopefully so we need to put in for a table for that for that event wants to do it again too but you guys had mentioned doing walking in the parade I know I threw a lot of this stuff on the table yeah I will be in North Carolina I thought you meant the costume. I'm not doing the parade without you, John. Sorry. I will be at the booth. Well, I was just going to suggest. And I got to check it. Before I commit, I actually have to check. like what college timing is, because I'm actually not sure what college timing is.

I can't be in the parade, but I was going to suggest that the groups get together. Yeah. Someone like Tom Esty has a nice flatbed, got all those plants, put it up there. You guys can have a nice environmental truck float thing in the parade. That would be cute. Have the costumes like your wife told me she had and was ready to go and turn it big.

You were going to get a costume. That was me. I was going to be like, I was going to buy it.

Then I'm like...

I think let's just stick to a table this year. A table and hats. Maybe we spell out on Facebook in advance that we'll be promoting our hats. We might consider a show special on our hats.

All right, you guys.

Next, anything else about the summer or no new business?

No, I don't feel like I'm entitled to talk about it since I won't be there.

No, you won't, you won't. Nobody here from the public, which is next on our agenda. And then last is a round table of the sessions. Anybody?

We've already done it, I think. One thing. Round table. No, no.

I got one thing. I also have one thing. I got one thing. We have a new sponsor road folks and waste management. And that's their sign. That's ready to go. I need an approval for 178. She paid her 250 or whatever. Okay. Okay. Plus that. Or money thing you want to vote on. Yeah, let's vote on it.

So. I make a motion to approve. $178. Waste management, $178. Okay.

We take about a week and a half for that sign to get made, and DBW will put it up for us. Okay. Where are we going to put it up? The sign will be on Liberty. So they paid us $250.

Right, so we make a little bit of profit.

We pay for that sign to get up as soon as possible.

It won't be on Rockingham Road, though. She originally said she wanted it out in Rockingham. I said, don't put it there. That section from where they are up to Poor Boys, up to the bus station, is the dirtiest section of the street in the whole town. I said, you don't want your name. And I put it on your street, okay, further down. So as you drive down that street, it'll be on the right-hand side. Just as you sort it, there's a little bend in the street.

And that's what they want?

That's what they want. That's what we do.

Can we have an official vote on that? So Beth made a motion. I seconded. All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. Excellent. And that passes. Wonderful. Okay. Thank you, John.

That's all I have.

That's all you have?

I'd like to purchase a half.

Excellent. Excellent, sir. We have PayPal or we take a check. Does that PayPal work? Can you take a look?

Can I make a suggestion? Yeah. Lady gave me a buck.

Yeah.

Okay. So I went on my phone, I think it was, and I did PayPal for a buck. For a buck. And I got a weird little thing that said we have to check legitimacy or something. It was a little weird thing. And I use Venmo all the time. I don't use PayPal that much. Did it go through?

No.

I don't know yet. I just did that this morning. But they said it might be up to 72 hours before it goes through. I haven't seen that. But what I was thinking about was this little problem we have with not being able to take cash, for example, at old home days.

Yeah.

If when we took the cash, and there were maybe two of us there, so you have a witness.

Yeah, witness, yeah.

And then you put it right into a Venmo. Yeah. You put it in. That way there's a permanent record of it. Right. Okay. It goes into our account. They may take a couple points off the top of it, but that's fine. and we have a record of it, and you can use my Venmo account, somebody else's, it doesn't matter, and just have it flow through there so we have a record that the money went to Beautify Lundry ultimately. Okay. Okay.

Yeah, I think let's clarify with Justin about that. Can we do flow through Venmo? I think that's a great idea because this PayPal does not seem to be working. No. Right, because Beth, your friend, had a hard time with it. And then, you know, Sarah said she checked it like a week ago, a week and a half ago, and said that there was nothing.

Miss, I don't know.

Yeah, so I think, so maybe it's not. So, okay, we'll have to take that off.

The other thing I noticed is on your letter, you have the QR code and then the website underneath. If I'm on my phone, I can read that QR code and I get one screen. And it gives you your PayPal options, etc. If I put that code into my PC at home, I get not only the ability to donate through PayPal, but I get a click and I can donate through Venmo.

Interesting.

Because I believe Venmo now owns PayPal.

Yeah, they do. So it's a way to click through. PayPal owns Venmo.

which I had noticed before.

Okay, so we'll have to check up on that.

Why do we have to go through that? You go to the drop-off center and you just write a check.

Well, we can write a check.

We can take checks, too.

But most people don't do checks anymore.

Okay, if nobody else has anything, I do have one thing that I would like to step down as chair. It's just been a lot with all of the things that I have responsibility for. So I would like to... step down in my position as chair for this committee and I know we don't have a lot of people we're desperate need of people so so I did reach out to John earlier and floated the idea of me stepping down and would he be willing to step up as chair Um, and then I don't mind taking the secretary position.

Um, if that's the case.

I will stay on. Yes, I will stay on. Um, um, but I just, it's too, there's, I have way too many things going on to be like, you know, I understand.

I just did the same thing. I just stepped down as board chairman of of the New Hampshire Bible Society after I don't know how many years. And we now have a new president, but they asked me to stay on the board.

Yeah, yeah.

So I understand what you're doing.

Yeah. So I'll stay on. And I can type up the minutes.

I'm happy to do that. I think you need to do a vote.

yeah i absolutely do need to we do need to do a vote yes absolutely i don't want to assume just because i am going to officially state that i am stepping down as chair do you do we need to does everybody need to decide that they accept that or no i don't know you need to accept me stepping down chair i think somebody has to nominate or accept it except that it has to be accepted and then okay so you have to make a motion make a motion to accept joy stepping down second there you go okay all in favor aye aye okay great opposed opposed yeah no no did you you gotta ask thank you yeah i wasn't saying yeah And then we need another motion. So John, we also need John to step down, though, Secretary.

I make a motion that, and as her resigning, that John be our new president.

Chairman. Chair.

Geez, President.

Chairman. I am the President.

Okay, wait a second. I think if I heard right, I have to step down from being Secretary. Correct. Somebody needs to make a motion.

Make a motion that you step down as Secretary.

And second.

I second.

Second. Second. Second. Okay.

All in favor? Aye.

Aye. Any opposed? We already made the motion for the president.

Okay.

Well, we have to do it in the proper order. He wasn't available yet. Now he's available. I make the motion that John becomes the new chairman of Beautify Londonderry. Second. All in favor? All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? Great.

And lock this woman in place as secretary now.

And then do we have to make her secretary now? And I make a motion that Joy becomes secretary.

And I second that motion.

All in favor? Aye. All opposed?

Okay. I'll vote for the affirmative.

Super. Wonderful.

Thank you guys. We did it.

When does this go into effect? Right now, John. Damn it.

Now. Right now. Okay. All right. 818 meeting is adjourned.