Committees - Regular Meeting

And we need a motion to approve the March 13 2026 minutes and we really don't have to do we have to approve make the 24 April 24 minutes. So, it's just a motion. Everybody should have gotten a copy of those minutes from March 13. If I have somebody to make that motion, I would appreciate it.

Okay.

And 2nd. All in favor say aye. Aye. All against? And I guess we have a two, we have three, five, seven, nine. So we're nine zero vote, okay. All right, so, and before I just start 1 other little thing, how Dixon is also a town liaison, the function of the town liaison actually. They're representatives from the board that and all of the meetings. So there are 20 some odd committees that are here in town. They're all assigned multiple and usually in case of probably 678 sometimes more. Of meetings that they attend and represent us on the town board. We, and I'll start by saying this, we've been very fortunate to have, we would not be a committee of 11 and we're the only committee here on shelter island that that is that large. And somebody said to me is, you know, is that going to be an issue? It's a large, it's going to be cumbersome. No, no, that's why we decided to go into subcommittees and to make, you know, the mission is pretty big and we're going to look at that mission statement right now. But without any further ado, at the very top, we had our original mission statement, which we modified at the last meeting. Actually, it now states to educate. support and empower all shelter islanders by providing effective mental health support human services and wellness advocacy in collaboration with as many stakeholders as possible in our community a pretty broad statement but we've always been you know our a focus has been on education and mental health And now we're broadening it to all aspects of health and well-being to include the physical, to include diet, nutrition and exercise and everything. And that's why that's why I was kind of convinced that we had to go to 11 people. We were not going to be able to do this with just a handful of people. And I think that was a move in the right direction. So that's our mission statement again. Is it cast in stone? No, we can modify a mission statement. We can modify our goals at any time. So if somebody sees some way that we should be modifying them, bring them up at a meeting, we'll discuss it, and then we can modify it. Right now that's our mission statement. Do I have a motion to approve that?

Yeah, I don't know who saw my email. Okay. I sent an email out because I was not at the last meeting. Yes, sir. And I listened to, I watched it on YouTube and I sent it out and I actually have small tweak issue with this mission statement. Okay. Let's hear it primarily the word provide. We do not provide. So I don't know who read it, but I'll read you what I wrote. To educate, support, and empower all Shelter Islanders by focusing on effective mental health support, community-based human services, access to health care services, and that was because of Leslie, and all aspects of wellness advocacy in collaboration with as many stakeholders as possible in our community. Okay.

Okay. I kind of so yeah um I just think that a mission statement is just a very broad statement and your goals are clear, so I think when we talked about we talked about just saying something like to educate our role is to educate support and empower all shelter residents to improve or maintain their overall health and well being and then would come. In your goals, you know what I mean?

I don't have a problem with that.

I had, but definitely what you said, you do not provide right?

That was so I just took the statement that I was given and rewrote it to make it. Yeah. I don't have a problem either way. I kind of like what I wrote, but, you know, because I think it hits all aspects and included something I thought was important from watching the last one, which was what you raised, Leslie, about access. All right.

So to get this right, that's kind of important that we do this. Bill, nice and slow on every word. Educate, support, empower.

You want to read it?

No, I want you to read it.

to educate, support, and empower all shelter islanders, comma, by focusing on effective mental health support, comma, community-based human services, comma, access to community-based human services. Services? Yep. I just took the words that were there, and I tweaked a little. Comma, new phrase, access to health care services. That was Leslie's. and all aspects of wellness advocacy. And the reason I'll just say that I used all aspects is because we went from fitness to nutrition to, yeah, on everything else there, in collaboration with as many stakeholders as possible in our community. That's the same language that was there. So there was just some tweaks to different things. You have an extra copy of that? No, but you can have this. I have it on my email.

I want to hear Gina's again because.

Yeah.

And I took that from the notes that we had. Let me just go back because now I have many, many, many, many.

I know it was to improve, educate, support, and empower all Shelter Island residents.

It was to educate, support, and empower all Shelter Island residents to improve and maintain their overall health and wellness or well-being. Me, that's it with mental health and nutrition would come under our goals with as many stakeholders as possible piece.

You know, collaboration with the community, I think that came in as a goal.

Yeah, yeah, that we are not working on alone. We're working with community members, town departments.

Do you have an extra copy of that? Yeah, so I'll make a copy of it.

So, the only question I have about that is that when I read the 1 from last time, and the 1 that we talked about on the call was quite close to that. It's very focused on supporting the residents. And and helping them with their mental health, their well being and all of those things. But the reason that I hesitated a little is that. In order to address some of the access issues, it's not going to be just supporting the residents. We're actually going to have to address some of the fundamental structural access issues. That's not just helping them to be healthier, but trying to find solutions that they can't do on their own. And that was my only slight hesitation.

So would not be educating them on the solutions, showing them the direction where to go, because we're not providing services in a sense, right? Mental health services. We're directing people. You know, if there's a food shortage, we're going to direct you to cast. We're not going to open up a food pantry. You know what I mean? So we're directing. We're facilitating access. Facilitating access.

It's a great way to say that. It's not just educating them. We may have to go. Right, right, right. Oh, yeah. We may have to find ways to bring providers to the island, creative solutions around that. And then, indeed, we're going to need to educate and communicate around it, but we're going to have to do some of the groundwork and the statement felt like it didn't cover that.

So, what can we add to that piece facilitate access support access.

Yeah, so so we're going off of data.

It still takes support.

So maybe we just facilitate.

All right. To educate support.

Yeah, and power and power and facilitate access and okay.

To educate support and empower all shelter on residents by facilitating access to. Or that, I guess we don't want to say all that. Now we're just saying.

To educate support and power and facilitate access for all shelter Islanders to, and then the rest of.

Okay, so just access to.

Well, facilitate access for all Shelter Islanders to whatever the rest.

Or to and then for all Shelter Islanders, but those are the words.

To educate, support, empower, and facilitate access for all Shelter Island residents to improve and maintain their overall health and wellness.

Yep. Yes. That's good.

We're good on that. All right. Everybody comfortable with that.

Yeah, I think that the in collaboration with stakeholders.

I mean, maybe just in collaboration with as many community stakeholders.

I sort of feel like that should be part of our mission. Otherwise, it sounds like we're going to be doing it all by ourselves.

I would agree.

How do you want to put that in?

I think that came in into the 1st goal is the effective communication working with community groups. Town constituents, whatever it's going to be.

The word stakeholders is a little tough for me. Like, I don't, I almost need someone to explain to me what that means. I don't know that the lay person would. Like devil's advocate. Can someone explain to me what that means? Stakeholders as possible.

Other people that care about these issues and may have additional value to bring to the party. And those could be organizations. They could be experts on the island. Anybody else? It can really add value so that it's not just us having to solve all the problems.

True. How about community resources?

That makes more sense right off the bat with as many community resources as possible. Yes, that's good.

No, I like stakeholders better because that's who you're really reaching out to. Yeah, we're not the resources because the stakeholders can be actually the people that are utilizing the services. Yeah. That's true.

That's what I think this means. Yeah, right.

Yeah, we need to include it either or. I would just leave it as as is.

The longer it makes it, the more it hurts your original point.

I don't know, Jessica, if there's any way that you could get it up on the board so we can look at it. I know it's hard to just talk about it without seeing the words.

Well, you can shorten it a little bit by saying with as many community stakeholders as possible and in our community, that's a little more superfluous. Yeah.

You know, as a lay person, I wouldn't know what stakeholders are.

Yeah, I just wonder if it's going to resonate with everyone, which our mission statement, they shouldn't have to think, well, what does that mean?

Yeah. I don't know. I also, when I was reading the mission statement, wondered, okay, who are the stakeholders? What is that? Who are we referring to?

Which is why it might be something to elaborate on in one of our goals.

Yeah, I think so too.

That's okay, but there might be a better word for stakeholders. That means the same thing. I'm not sure.

That's just the same as community can stay community stakeholders, groups. Like, even the recreation for the community, the stakeholders, the right word, the word stakeholders and you're right.

Not everybody knows that word is people that actually have a state in the community. They care about it. They're invested in it, but not everybody's going to know that word.

Okay, there it is up on the screen.

All right.

So it's social access.

In collaboration with community members?

In collaboration with the community.

Yeah, in collaboration with the community.

Yes.

Because then that would include all state vendors. Yes.

All right. In collaboration. With the community. With the community.

Community is a big umbrella.

It is. It covers everything. wanted to read more smoothly you could just move up the improve and say to educate support empower and facilitate access um to improve and maintain to improve and maintain overall health and wellness um for all shelter shelter island residents because that's the target of all of this so you just move that back in collaboration with the community

Take that comma after access. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. So still approved. Yeah.

After all, you just, you just cut it right before the word in collaboration.

And you got to get rid of there at that point. It doesn't refer. You have to bet.

Well, what are you, what are you facilitating access to needs to be all shelter in residence once you read the whole thing. To maintain overall health and wellness for all shelter residents, but to facilitate access to what? So, now I hear what you said access to resources, which helps us.

Exactly. I have to have stick in something like that. I mean, go back to that. Yeah, go back. Access to what? We're still not saying to what, but it's to health and wellness services.

I feel like access to resources, maybe if we had resources, it could still be a sentence.

Access to resources.

Yeah, I like that better, Meg.

it's jean's baby i don't know what i said it was yours it's better to keep it just yeah i feel like people get very um touchy about si versus the rock or the way i feel like we have to spell it out we will yeah shelter i can just see yeah that's from the size you know the rock residents

Yeah, somebody asked me recently, I was like, oh, yeah, you never want to do that.

So, how are residents different from the community? I kind of think that. I think we meant community to mean organizations.

Let's go back to what was in there. All shelter Islanders get rid of residents.

Yeah. Islanders.

I think that's a good call. Yeah, I do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Aversion with the you're saying community has to distinguish itself from islanders like they can well it's for me like music is are the resources really right community members don't necessarily.

Those groups be a residence.

About the people right now with the guy, for example, can you know cast is not to be in there in collaboration with the Community.

At this point, I don't think it's. Serious yeah.

Overall health and wellness period period that's because saying that we're going to collaborate with the community is also can be nudged into goals.

That's how we plan on providing that piece of paper. Simple, simple, simple.

that's good okay this is simple can i have that one sheet back that i gave you yeah he's making notes i made notes on it okay that's great you cut it in half it's like progress

I can't. Did you run a copy of that just for me? I want to put it in the notes. Absolutely the way it is without any changes. Okay. Are we comfortable?

Yes.

Let's call it to a vote. Do we have a motion?

I'll make that motion.

Okay.

Second.

All in favor, please say aye. Aye.

Okay. I think we're 9-0 again.

All right, part 2 here is proposal for new goals for the health and wellness. And I think we wanted to limit it to 4 or 5. We want to go 8, 10 goals. I think most goal statements are really around 4 or 5. We kind of agreed that one and two, this wasn't one and two in our original, but we kind of thought that these were important goals. So that's why I isolated them alone, if you could all read them. Goal number one was to facilitate effective communication between community groups that will enhance access, efficiency, and effectiveness of outreach. trying to think that is probably our most significant goal i mean that educational piece has always been there and we can do it in a variety of ways but i think that's i think that's a good solid goal second goal goal number two to conduct a needs assessment of community health and wellness needs and design programs to address gaps discovered in this process now i don't know if That end of that in this process is, is that good or or do we need to amend that slightly?

Why not?

Just say gaps gaps.

You can stop it. Yeah, I can take out because it's in there twice.

Okay. And the topic gaps got the 1st needs for the word ongoing.

To conduct ongoing.

Oh, yeah. Yes. I'm going. Okay. Like that too.

I just have a question about that 1. I think it needs to say something like, when possible to address gaps again, I'm concerned about managing expectations in the community. And this implies that when we get the results of the survey, we will be addressing the gaps.

And unfortunately, this committee does not have the ability to address the authority stopping after wellness needs and just say, to conduct an ongoing needs assessment of community health and wellness needs.

So I do think it's good to try to design programs when possible because it makes us more ambitious. But we may not get to do that.

Design programs when possible to address gaps.

To design programs, period. You know what I mean? I don't know what the gaps and the gaps.

Is this something that we're going to be doing all the time? Or is it on this? When I was reading over this, it just, I had to sit with it a lot of times to like. Digest all the words that were in it and I was just wondering if, I mean, it might be too simplistic and totally not correct, but if the goals were just to support kind of the subcommittees, like each subcommittee had a goal that could stay evergreen. All the time, and then under each goal, maybe that changes annually, quarterly, whatever with your action items that are maybe out on the website or not.

Are we listing anything on the website that shows the subcommittees? Because that might be helpful for the public to know that we have these subcommittees that are more targeted. And I like the idea of each subcommittee.

Yeah, plan on doing that. Yeah, I think we plan on doing that. I think that the 1st, 2 goals. Are endorsed by regardless of what subcommittee you're on, you know, that's that's goal number 1 and goal 2, goal 3, 4 and 5, I think should be made for the subcommittee. Yeah, Laurie.

Don't we conduct and evaluate anything? Is an evaluation part of our need to because we're all skilled practitioners.

I think that the needs assessment is really like, you're conducting a needs assessment to see. where the gaps are in the communities looking for. So I would say that, but we're not going out and evaluating individual's needs.

We're evaluating a problem and then we're referring it to one of the subcommittees.

Not necessarily the way we're thinking about it.

Then if you conduct something, who's going to take it from there?

Provide us with information to see what areas we need to address.

Yeah, I looked at goal number 2 as John Morris. Efforts in the last almost year. To do individual interviews to do group interviews to do outreach to do community. Now we're involved in a community assessment type of thing. That is has to be ongoing and I'm glad we added that we're ongoing all the time because it's going to keep us up to date.

um what if we change goal to to conduct an ongoing needs assessment of community health and wellness to um to understand through the process of evaluation better identify identify the needs

That's what a needs assessment is just saying it twice. Yeah, right. You know, needs assessment is to assess what needs what what do people need?

It's almost like it's missing in the conversation that we need to clarify. This needs assessment is essential. It's foundational. And then I think the point that Laura is trying to make is, okay, once we've done that. How's it gonna get used? We're not gonna go out there and fix everything. What we are gonna do is make choices about our priorities, right? Based on what we hear, maybe we're gonna find out from the community they're much more interested in X than Y, and that would orient us toward that. So it is gonna be directional.

And that whatever solutions we can provide or connections we can make are not targeted at one individual's need, but rather how we can most people as possible.

I think part of what's happening with these goals is that they're too specific and targeted. I feel like, you know, goal number one to facilitate effective communication and education between community groups. And, you know, I think that one should really just be to educate and communicate with the public. Goal number two is to conduct the needs assessment. Goal number three can be to provide educational programs programs to enhance well-being goal four can be to provide education on nutrition and health or something like that that's where the subcommittees people set their own mission like so their own goals work on you know a bike outing i want to work on um like a cooking class i want to work but that would be Those are the minutiae that you would see here. It wouldn't necessarily be like the group goals. Tackling chronic obesity is not necessarily going to be a group goal, but it might be a focus that the nutrition area wants to look at and maybe coordinate some kind of program about healthy eating and understanding nutrients.

The way I looked at it is the first two goals are committee-wide. effective communication um outreach you know education is extremely extremely important the second thing about the ongoing assessment of the community and and what the needs identifying the needs of the community are there what i thought was in three four and five each one of the subcommittees would have a goal by the way even though mental health social wellbeing, physical health, and any, they're all connected. They're all connected. We have broken them down individually into focus areas of how to improve nutrition and fitness, one aspect of health. The mental health is looking at other aspects of health include addictions and all kinds of things like that. So, I think that's, you know, I, I don't see anything wrong with that. That we have 2 general goals supporting all 3 subcommittees and each 1 of the subcommittees has a general goal that fits in with what they're trying to accomplish. So maybe we, maybe we should allow the subcommittee. And jump right down to the subcommittees and solidify them and let them come up with their own goal to put back into. No crazy.

Do we need the goals? Just because. Everybody kind of knows that we have the mission statement, right? And then each group, each subcommittee kind of has ideas on what they want to do to support the mission statement, like, individual goals. I don't know that, like. Like, hashing out. some of these concepts like education with the community, clearly something that we're going to do, it's actually in the mission statement, right? You know, empowering people, we're going to do that through education and other things. Like I knew like a lot of it's in the mission statement, so I don't know if we need specific goals outlined for everything. Because I think it's going to change. You're going to focus on one topic and then you're like, ooh, now I want to teach people about this. So you're not going to redo your goals every time you come up with a different program.

If I can add to what Meg said, I mostly agree with you, Meg, and I think that it's good because it will evolve. But going back to what Jim said, I do think the first two goals kind of establish something. And if possible, I think I have an idea on the second goal. I'll read it. To conduct ongoing need assessments of community health and wellness and evaluate actions and programs based upon the results of such assessments.

So just to build on that, I really like that idea, because the only other one in here to me that felt like it's quite broad as opposed to the specific issue was the one that said to create structured, actionable plans. And Bill just incorporated that into the second one. And then to my mind, those are the broad ones.

And you're right from there.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Because I'm like, then it gets a little hairy, too detailed, and it's like, But let's say you feel like you tackle that, you want to move on to something else.

And then you're bound to, but you guys said you were going to do this. I think broader is better.

I think the one that is missing though, if you had 1, 2, 3, the 3rd is just to organize educational programs related to health and wellness. And you mentioned about actions, like, really thinking about, okay, so what actions have we done in that? You know, we did. a vigil we did bereavement groups we did brain injury month we did seasonal affective disorder we did a brain those are program if you do a bike programming about safety and how to organize like those would where does you know to fall there if you wanted to do something with nutrition that would pull there you know like where the assessment we did focus groups leader interviews member community members we did you know the actions that we could do so that they know that those are because some people who might have

Some people may not understand that those events that were already successful, like, were a result of the health and wellness committee, or just as an example based off of that, which is, if you think about this 1st, we need to assess.

Then we need to develop plans and then we need to communicate. That's really the biggest communicate, coordinate, educate. That's really at the highest level what we're doing. Spend the time figuring out what matters and develop priorities and then communicate and educate outward, period.

So, with that in mind, just keep it at the 3 goals.

Yes.

Yeah. Okay. I'd like to let's run that by. So, goal number 1 is established, right? We voted on it. We're okay with that. Goal number 2. Light with Bill's statement.

To me goal number 2 is the 1st 1 in that, right? So it's to assess, right? Okay. So it's to conduct a needs assessment. Right.

To conduct on.

Yes, period. It's goal number 1. That would become number 1. 1st, we assess.

Okay, okay.

Goal number 2 would be would be to develop and I don't know how you want to articulate it. It's closest to the 1 to create structured actionable plans or however bill you articulated it related to health and wellness, right? Like, what's what's the plan coming off of what we just programs plans programs and plans. Yeah, that encompasses all those areas. And then goal number 3 would become the 1st, 1 that you have here to facilitate effective communications and you used another word education, education, communication.

Outreach all right, let's let's do this then. Let's let's reword them. Jessica, if it works so well, last time, by putting them up on the screen.

I would be old school with a chart and a paper and a magic marker.

Where's the whiteboard?

Where's the whiteboard? I want a whiteboard so bad.

Yes. Or flip charts. A flip chart, yes.

I'm going to put it together here.

That's the needs assessment piece.

That's the needs assessment.

Ongoing needs assessment.

Of community health and wellness area. Programs that was your other word, Gina was programs and actionable plans. Yeah, the number 2. It would be to create structured programs and actionable plans to address needs.

Okay.

So maybe then you don't need to save twice then. that's that's that's kind of like the one that's down there on the three to five exactly third one down and then the last one is to facilitate effective education communication and outreach is that correct Two is to create structured programs and actionable plans to address needs. Actionable plans. I don't know if you guys can decide if you want to be more specific.

Well, do we like that increased awareness, promote healthier habits and improve overall well-being of the community or is that too wordy? Health and wellness kind of covers.

And then the third one. Health and wellness needs. Because that's our focus, health and wellness. Number two, yeah. Number three is to facilitate effective communication, education, or we can simplify, to educate, communicate, and do outreach to the community, something like that.

Facilitate instead of do outreach?

Facilitate outreach.

Yeah, and facilitate outreach.

Facilitate outreach. Short and sweet.

Yeah, because that's a biggie.

Facilitate outreach would include like bringing in the other professionals and whatnot.

Yeah. Is that understood that way? Facilitate outreach also?

I like it because we're not actually doing the providing the outreach. We are facilitated. This is what you need. Well, this is the organization that does it.

Let's communicate between maybe so it is facilitate, but maybe the idea that's missing is dialogue because that's going to happen within the community, right? Right. Like, hearing back, I guess that could communicate.

That's communicate. Okay.

On goal two, I'm just still struggling with the expectations issue. We took out when possible, and that would be a little bit.

So we need to hear if the word create or to add when possible.

I'm not sure, but I mean, we're definitely going to create programs and we're going to make plans, but we're not necessarily going to be able to address every health and wellness need.

To say all health and need, we just said to address health and wellness need, but you didn't say all health and need.

I think it could be useful to manage expectations and say what's possible.

I'm concerned about this. It's not going to be everything.

About when possible or where possible, create structured programs and actionable plans. Either at the beginning or the end, we need to say that.

Yeah.

Or maybe something about based on the priority needs of the community.

Well, even based on the priority needs, we may not be able to do it all at once. We might not be able to do that. Yes.

So I just am concerned.

So just maybe after all this needs, when possible. Yeah.

When possible.

I could go with all of them. Jessica, in number one, make it to conduct, get rid of an ongoing need assessments. It reads better.

Yes, and there will be hopefully many. So that's good.

The only thing that's still missing is the evaluation piece.

So, what do we mean by evaluation? Yeah, you get all this information care part of the needs assessment. That's what I mean. And then you're going to analyze. So, right. Where do you evaluate?

We're just saying to conduct. Evaluate or conduct and analyze?

Conduct and analyze. I mean, whatever, because we're not going to get to our structured programs until we do that.

Right. I mean, we're going to do more than just conduct. That's, I guess, my point to conduct and evaluate, because then evaluate and implement results.

We're not conducting results. We're evaluating results, right?

Conduct ongoing needs assist. Yeah, we're evaluating the results.

To my mind, a need assessment implies that.

The purpose of a need assessment is to- We can get- I think this is good. Yeah. Okay. Looks good.

I think about the last one, because I'm stuck on the facilitate outreach to educate, to communicate and to implement. And well, yeah, something about where the outreach is a little foggy for me. Like, where do we talk about bringing collaborating with like.

i don't know if i have the answer but it's just a little messy so maybe to create structured programs and actionable plans to address health and well needs needs in collaboration with community members or is that in the other one we took it out because we thought it was duplicative but now the question is is it does it feel like it feels like because we don't like some nancy have talked about the library we don't only work with the library like now we're working on a program with the police department so that's exactly what our goal is to work with The town, the community organization, is this where we can use the word stakeholders? Stakeholders are constituents, community constituents. Like, we're working with the community. We're not providing things.

Facilitating collaboration with the community.

Well, the idea was to put it into the 2nd, the 2nd might work nicely. Okay.

Because we may not be doing these things alone. Most of them were not. In collaboration with stakeholders, the community stake in collaboration with communities. Okay.

So after wellness, so goal two, after wellness needs in collaboration with community stakeholders. These are just goals.

So I don't think it's, I don't think you need to say when's possible because that's almost like negating your goal. It's saying like, well, we're really not, just say that's our goal. We're not saying we're bound to do it. Right, right, right. It's not a promise. It's not a promise, right. We're not going to ask with the community. Is that what you want to say? In collaboration with Community constituents, community stakeholders. I think stakeholders. I think stakeholders is a great word.

I still don't know what it means, though. No, we do. Yeah, I do.

Well, I understand that it didn't need to be in the mission statement, but I understand it being in the goals.

Now there's more context, too, with number one and number three. I feel like that's a little bit more understandable.

Yeah. Could you say resources instead of stakeholders? It's a different idea.

It's a different idea. Yeah, it is cold.

We can either just say with the community. Yeah. With the community band, that's it. Yeah, let's get rid of the stakeholders.

I like stakeholders. Now that I know what it means, I like it.

Yeah, now I'm going to use it all the time. Now we need to educate the rest of the community about stakeholders.

First program, let's talk about what stakeholders mean.

I'm so sorry, everyone. Bye, Emily.

Bye, Emily.

Thank you.

It looks good.

I think it looks good.

Are we OK without stakeholders?

Yeah. Yes. We can live with that.

We can live with that.

Yeah. And then if a lot of people start saying, hey, you guys said you were supposed to do this and you didn't do that, we can add when possible.

So the community can we encompass organizations that are off island as well as on?

Yeah, I didn't say island, like, like, cast and it's a stakeholder, but they're not necessarily shelter in the ham.

Yeah, this is great unity. That's included in community.

Okay. Um, let's go to 5. All right, and that this shouldn't be, uh, this should take us very little time. Establishment of subcommittees so far we have 3 subcommittees. health mental health group that is composed of nancy laurie bonnie now laurie and bonnie are not one of the 11 actual voting members but they are important people bonnie has been like instrumental in this group and so has laurie both of them really have been in terms of mental health issues laurie has access to this every day on the job in terms of You know, the needs are, you know, she sees this up close and personal. Does anybody else feel as if that might be an area of expertise that they would like to go to? Or let's look at education, communication group and outreach. Gina, Jim, John, Natasha, Leslie. And then wellness, fitness, and nutrition was Bill, Vicki, Emily, Allie, and Ron.

I don't think it excludes anyone from joining in on something that's happening yet, but it is fluid. Fluid groups.

Where did you put John?

John is with communication and outreach.

Okay. Because he's a sociologist, too. He's good for mental health.

Yeah, I think his primary function right now for this committee, though, is gathering like he did for me. I gave him a four page paper on maybe a hundred responses or more from parents. And he consolidated down to one piece of paper and he looked at common stuff and it was very helpful for me. That's what he does. And I think in this year, we are still a long way away from establishing that needs assessment, nailing it shut. So I think a lot of our focus has to go into that area in the next few months, obviously.

So, Jim, when I spoke with Nancy, I had said, I was wondering if there was some way to rename the education communication group and outreach to make sure that we're covering off this idea of access that we've been articulating. Okay. And 1 suggestion would be to call it community engagement and access.

That's good. Okay. Doesn't outreach mean access?

No. Outreach means we're talking and communicating and access means we're looking for solutions. Oh. Community engagement and access. Engagement and outreach are similar.

Okay.

Engagement covers off communication and education.

Okay. Don't have a problem with that. Anybody else? Okay.

I have a question about kind of what's missing. So if these are the 3 proposed subcommittees. Who who is in charge? How does this committee work together to figure out?

Correct? We were going right there.

Okay.

So, I think I think when you develop subcommittees, you probably need a person that, you know, a lead person on that subcommittee to kind of. to bring it together a little bit, you know, in terms of when are you meeting, how are you, you know, because that's gonna be divorced from this entire committee. You guys are gonna meet on your own time. I don't care when it is, and you're gonna tackle issues, you know.

That are home. Yes, we're not.

We're not now meeting. For another 2 months, so we don't meet until July, but we have a lot of work to get done in between. That obviously the strength of the committee in the past has always been. the meetings that we have in between the two-month period of time. When we're on an event, we're on there at that event sometimes three times a week or more, just dotting the I's, crossing the T's, and making sure it all happens. It's set up and everything else, contacting speakers, and refreshments, and who's helping us sponsor it, and microphones, and chairs, and you name it. It's all part of that. And we've been doing it very successfully. and and getting more and more people to our different events but i would like to have somebody step forward on each one of those committees that would that would be kind of like take on the responsibility of bringing those subcommittees together no megs or no yeah or or you can even think of it like if you have an idea of something that you want to put forward like for example bill i'm going to hit on you because if you sent an email with an idea

for education around bicycling for both bicyclists and drivers and casual bikers and professional bikers. So Bill had this great idea, right? So he brought it forward. So then I would say, okay, is there anybody else who's interested in working with Bill to make that concept a reality? Then you can create a subcommittee around that. Maybe Bill's the point person and you know, like, And then once that's done, you guys can be like, okay, is there something else we want to work on? Or maybe someone else has an idea and then three of you or four of you pair off to work on that and make it a reality. So it's like the subcommittees are like your key topics, but if you have something you want to run with, Find partners in crime and then go like, that's kind of the idea of having 11 fluid.

So, you just have to be cautious thing is, I don't want to get so ambitious that everybody comes up with 3 ideas from 3 different subcommittees. We're trying to do 9 things in the month of July. You know, that that's just something I want to be just a little careful of. We have a calendar that we have to honor. We have to kind of look at the calendar, the master calendar. That's why. By having a contact person, you have 3 or 4 or 5 people in 1 committee subcommittee. It's difficult to communicate unless there's 1 person designated. I'll touch base with and basically Nancy and I. whether we're on a committee or not, we're still going to be obviously serving as co-chair people for this. So we would be responsible not only to sit on the individual committees that we're on, but also be able to oversee the calendar. Because again, I just don't want to get so out there that we're, you know, each one of these events to organize them takes some time. Like Gina is the master of putting the opioid awareness thing together. You know, year after year, we get 100, 120 people, you know, out for that event. And that's been growing every year, you know, with different speakers and changing up speakers. And it's pretty dynamic.

So do we want to wait until things come forward and kind of like decide how they want to do that?

Yeah, I mean, I think if someone has ideas now and you guys want to group off, like, We can start working on ideas.

Yeah. I think I have to kind of, I think, because of this thing on the needs assessment is so great. That I think some of our energy has to all be in gathering this and working with John. If John's going to be the taskmaster of bringing all this together. We really need to. I don't want to see this needs assessment go on forever. I want to have a realistic time where we nail a shot and say, right.

But I would say that, like, Jim, you, Leslie, John and whoever else can be point on that. work on making sure you get all the information together and collect it, because it's much easier to do it with three or four people, yeah, Vicky, whoever, but it's easier to do it with three or four people than trying to get 11 people all to do it, right? So it's like, well, if you're working on that, then, you know, like, randomly, Bill, Natasha, and Callie can work on a bicycle event, and then, you know, Gina, you're going to be working on the opioid awareness event in, you know, September, I can't remember what month it is, But you know what I mean like that way we're not losing focus on the needs assessment, but we're also still doing programs for other things so that you're not just doing the needs assessment and nothing else right that's.

It's a little balancing act.

Can we take a look at some of the information that we have already accumulated? Because we do have quite a lot of information. I think it would behoove us now to take a look at that because some of them are repeating and you can see there are strong flags.

I think that's a good suggestion. 2 or 3 of us get together what we're doing, substantiate what we have already and disseminate it to all 11 people. So all 11 people can see it. Like, I can give you. You know, today I can give you the response of 13 parents that took, you know, a half hour to sit down and do a yeoman's job and come up with a hundred suggestions of what we can do to better our school situation, you know? And I already shared those, by the way, only shared them with one person and asked them not to share it with anybody else in terms of the faculty that was superintendent. I said, here is what we got back. Because the one thing that they said in that survey, the 13 people repeated constantly, I hope I just didn't waste 20 minutes or a half hour of my life to fill out a survey. I hope this creates some change and is seen by people. Again, you can't expect everything. They were very realistic to act on everything. But there's a lot of meat and potatoes in there that needed to be addressed.

And I think we already have a substantial amount of info that we have to look at. And I think now we talked about a survey. Now is not the time for a survey because the health survey is out there and people will be totally confused. I was confused. People are confused. So let's put that to bed for a little bit so that you can get your information, which is needed on the health survey. And let's take the information that we have, start to look at it and find more ways to get information.

When is the health survey due by? Is it done?

Today. Today's the last day.

That is the last day.

So I'm going to close it today. I have all the paper ones that I've collected that I have to enter in.

What kind of response did you get back?

Over 350 pages. Oh, wow. That's great. So once I have everybody enter, because I have a stack of papers I have to do, I'll send the results of that to all of you. So what I'll do is I'll collect that information along with all of the districts that we've done so far and all the other stuff that we worked on. And we're going to do one email for everybody. So you have all that information.

And I'll give you the school results so you can get that one email. Get it all out. All right, so realistically, when, when can we get that done by you?

Thank you. Send me your opinion.

I'll send it to you today.

Yeah. And then I'll send it out.

Okay.

So, it's my concern, and this is not meant to be a criticism is that with 11 people, there's so many ideas and how do we come up with the strategy. That this committee is going to pursue so that we don't halfway do 20 things and so that. We agree on what our focuses we just is very constructive. Just a minute ago. We said, okay, we really do have to focus. Somebody's got to do this assessment and bring it to the finish line. Okay. So that's an important thing. But where's that list and the master calendar? Because I fear we could be in a situation, especially when our next meeting is until July and everybody's got all these great ideas that all of a sudden, we've got 80 things on the calendar that aren't coordinated that really don't deal with a strategic imperative. That we've all agreed on. So, how do we kind of rein it in at the same time? We're trying to do all these wonderful things and that would be helpful if you.

Sent out the calendar of what events are already on it. Yes. A, and then B, I think a lot of this. Well, there's ideas like Bill has suggested, maybe may or June, we don't have anything else that we're doing then that's that works.

There's nothing right then.

We also can't really create anything until we have. More information from the needs assessment. Right, and then in conjunction with other ideas as they come up now, right? But we can't really do anything until we have, we know what we're doing.

And it's also going to be a situation where it's going to depend on how much each one of us takes on and when we feel like we're saturated.

Right.

Because that will determine what falls off the list is there's nobody to do it, right?

And time, you know, the summer is a busy time out here. Almost every night there's something, organizations are doing fun, you know, there's a lot going on in this community in the summer, so.

Well, I think what I hear is that the assessment is 1 discrete piece of work that probably the education, whatever the name of that committee is needs to work on. And the 2nd thing is the spike event. And that those are kind of the 2 immediate imperatives and then getting a calendar that shows us assessment. Okay. Getting the assessment.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And on the assessment, I thought it was agreed. I guess I'm a little surprised to hear that it was shared with someone because I thought that these things were meant to be just for this committee.

They are. So one of the agreements I had with him from the get go in order for him to participate in this was that he would get the schools about the school assessment.

Correct.

Just the school assessment. Correct. Just that piece from the PTA originally from the PTA. But it went out to all parents. As the superintendent of schools, you know, that that was something that was important. You know, Brian is that kind of guy that says, yeah, conduct a survey. I'm not even going to look at it. No, he couldn't wait to he wants to see wants to digest it because obviously it's, it's part of strategy moving forward.

I get that, but I mean, I've heard feedback from some of the groups, you know, the thing again, things about chief read. I mean, I didn't, I, you know, I don't think that it would be my role to go to chief read and say, I heard, you know, we heard this, this and this. I just think we probably should have some consistency about how we're handling because privacy and confidentiality was so paramount on this thing.

And there are no names as a committee there.

I think as a committee, we have to think about how we are going to handle this amazing them. I think it should be the same token. If we talk to the elder, whoever wants to talk to the elderly, I don't think they should necessarily go to the head of the senior center and say, this is what. We heard, I don't know, maybe I'm, we just need to agree to a process process and I just, you know, I think we have to be very cautious about anonymity.

Otherwise, it's, you know, you let 1 person know, and then you lose trust and do that.

Everybody knows when we say, oh, we interviewed the library, you know, like, you know, it's a small community. So.

Can I just come back, Jim, because you had an objective here of clarifying these committees in the process and you mentioned it would be good to have someone who was overseeing each 1 of those. And then Meg said, well, no, let's, let's have it depend on what the priorities are. And so I'm walking away not entirely clear on what the relationship is between the 3 that we have here. And then some other things that are going to be super interesting and relevant and how they're going to the pieces will fit together.

I think she was saying the committee is stand as they are and then we can be working on. Things that come out of the needs assessment or whatever, but if somebody has an idea, like, he's going to probably need to have support on getting the information out there and how to draw. So, you can just get to the group, maybe, and then other people, if they have the bandwidth to jump on board and help.

And some of the things that we do are simple, like, I think you're doing a presentation in this room televised, but then if it is, you know, not doesn't require seating and microphones and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah.

Versus other things that you might require more, you know,

it does require communication and that goes back to what you had said before with the crossing of the committees i you know i have i it's something i've done a number of times i can tweak it to different types of audiences but it still needs someone brilliant like Jessica to be able to help with the, I know her from community housing, she is brilliant and helpful, to help maybe with a PowerPoint and the switching of the PowerPoint while I'm doing different things up here. There needs to be someone perhaps from education and communication How does the word get out? Where do we do that? There are steps. You get an idea, but then you have to have steps and other people helping to effectuate.

That's a good example. Something like education right now, Nancy has written probably, I'm going to guess, 35 articles in the last two years and a reporter. Those are not things that generated necessarily from this committee. Some of them did, many of them didn't. But I think this is an opportunity now for that subcommittee to feed in based on the needs assessment of the kinds of people, not just, you know, wing some topic, you know, because out of the blue, what's when we prioritize? Based on the time of the year, obviously, when you talked about the winter blues and the winter, obviously, that's a great piece to write in there on October, November preparation. How do you prepare for winter here? If you're going to stay here on the island seniors in particular, how do you limit it? That's where the calendar comes in very handy.

So, how do you want to go back to your question about having. Do you want to have one person that says, for now at least, I'm happy to be the key point person on each one of these? Or do you want to have something that's rotating? I just think it will help us to be more effective if we're able to clarify that.

Based on my background, everything's chain of command. You know, it's all about the chain of command. And without it, you know, when you're a full colonel, you don't reach out to 750 people on a daily basis. So I got to have key people on staff that you're going to reach out to.

So can we ask each committee to either decide amongst themselves and get back quickly to say, here's your point person?

Mm hmm.

Would that be all right?

Let's do that.

That's a good idea.

And we can do that within. So we know who we are. Somebody sees the initiative, and we Zoom for 45 minutes on a Tuesday night or whatever is convenient. And you guys come up with it. We don't need to come up with it here, obviously. And it could be for six months or it could be based on the topic and you could rotate it around. That's fine. That's great. It's fluid. Yes.

So I think Bill's idea of the bike safety is obviously for the now, especially before the summer starts. It's a topic that really is a doable presentation. So I think that is a great place to start. The only other thing we have, the vigil, we need to confirm a date at this meeting so we all know and see what else is going on in the community. Other than that, right now, there's nothing else on the-

We did the brain.

We also did the bike safety connected with that. You know what I mean?

With what?

We did a brain. Brain. No, I don't think bikes and brains go together.

I mean, you have why you wear helmets for your frontal lobes. But that's not important here. It's not just safety. I mean, safety is an important component of it. But it gives people a little bit more . Right.

There are things that, you know, in preparation for summer, what can we do to make the roads safer, sharing the roads and all those kinds of stuff, wearing a helmet. If you're on a bicycle, going with the traffic in single file on key roads in particular. But there are long-term kinds of things that we could work with a town committee. where what are we doing about New York Avenue? What the hell are we doing about one point?

And we have a wonderfully receptive town board. I mean, this isn't just being gratuitous to Meg, i came into the town board and showed them pictures of signs from martha's vineyard right there is a law in suffolk county that you give three you must give three feet should be four but it's three in suffolk county it was They didn't go, they, they will jump right on it. Fortuitously, Ken Lewis was here at the same time. They work boom, boom and all of a sudden we have a dozen signs out here. So, okay. Yeah. So, I mean, we do have a good receptive town board to ideas of safety and protecting people.

Thanks everyone. Thank you.

Thanks, Leslie.

So I'm confused of this, the event that you want to do. Are we talking about, like, like, yeah, I'd like to know that. Are we talking about this, like, in the next month or two?

May is bike month, but I think more people will hear it in the third week of June. I was thinking maybe second week of the second Friday in June, and a lot of that would require coordination with Meg. Meg had made a great suggestion about this being the location um and people come out one of the things about teaching children how to ride a bike this isn't we don't need to treat adults no no no no but i'm just saying

There are kids that are 4 and 5 and 6 years old on 114. they don't belong. They're like, this squirrels or something.

Yeah, the school does bike safety.

They have an answer for our kids. You know, we're going to reach a couple dozen kids that go to school here talking about these kids that come from all final with parents. And by the way, dad is always in the middle of the lane. you know, and the kid is over on the shoulder or mom is over on the shoulder, have realistic expectations of what will occur. But there are certain places you teach bikes.

Yes. Teach a kid to ride a bike. 114 is not it.

It might grow into the recreation department organizing a Sunday bike group.

Meg and I have talked about that.

That's communication between organizations. One of the things with how do we...

how do you do a group bike ride? And explaining the dynamics of how you do group bike rides and why that is helpful, not only from the safety perspective, but from the activity fitness perspective, you have groups, people become more accountable and they want to do it more frequently because of that. It has all these nuance. It fits our goals.

I don't close on this because we need to wrap up this.

I recommend it's we open doing a Thursday. We used to do it on the national day, but it falls on the weekends. Right? The 20th of August.

Which is a Thursday, right?

Memorial Day is the 24th. So it's the Thursday before Memorial Day.

Oh, it's late.

Do we want to go the 27th?

Yeah, I mean, it should be. Around the same time it's done every year. Yeah. So it's usually the Thursday before it's the Thursday before Labor Day and then that's September 3rd.

I would do that.

I would go with this.

I would go 27th. The other thing I would go with 6 o'clock story.

Not 637. Right? What time is our original was 7?

No. Oh, yes, exactly. So we go to 630 only because it's an hour long. Yeah, the lighting has been a problem.

So what time? 630? 630 on the 27th.

Yes.

Now we do have to check that, like, past members that comes into fundraisers. There's a lot of things going on that. So I'll check into that conflict. 630 August 27. Yeah, anything no, I don't see anything on the calendar. 31st is the national day okay so it's close enough to one of the things that keep coming across is that that master calendar.

People are dying for a master calendar I think it's very, very important in so many ways that people understand what's going on on this island so it's a real good function for this group that we can somehow contribute to helping that you know here in town hall.

Is there a date that, Bill, I mean, is there a date? What's the date for your event?

Great question. I'm also looking.

What's the process to set? This is something.

Right. I have questions.

How do we set a date for an event?

What's the name of that, Bill? I'll come up with a name. Just put bicycle for now. I'll come up with a name.

What it takes to set it up depends on what you need, right? So for the vigil, that's coordinating with a bunch of different people. But we've done this before. We understand the process. So, Bill, what you are looking to do, you're going to do education, you want to use PowerPoint, and then I was saying we can record it and put it on our website, and so it's educational, it's out there. So, we were thinking of using this room because that's the easiest one to record and do PowerPoint is going to do it, you know, record it through Zoom. Right. So, what we need to do is make sure the room's available. and then see if there's a clerk, right? So, I mean, I can run the Zoom if there's not a clerk available, but those are the things that we would have to coordinate.

Right, so what week? Not a day, but what week?

Mid-June a week to early June? What are we looking at? Well, I was thinking to get more people out here mid-June. And I think a Friday night is better than any other night because you're not going to get people on a Saturday or Sunday night. And the other nights during the week, you'll have less. You'll have fewer.

Okay, so I don't think we want Juneteenth. So I think we're looking and that and the 10 K is the next day. So that's not a good one. Not a good. I think you're looking at the 12th dinner going on there either the 12th or the 26th 26. my son is getting married.

So that'll be that'll be difficult to me. Well, in 12, it's fine.

And it's a presentation? So this is a presentation that you're going to be giving?

Yeah. I have little things I bring. There will be a bike here.

There'll be things.

When you come up with a name, just give it to me.

Why a Friday rather than a Thursday?

Because not as many people are here on Thursday. People arrive. Thursday is the new Friday. People arrive on Thursday.

All the 12 families are still midterms. I know.

There's not going to be a perfect date. 26 would be a really good date, but my son Brian decided he wanted to get married in Rehoboth Beach.

You should move his wedding. Right. Really.

What time were you thinking now?

I'm open.

I just randomly put it in for 630, but that was just because we were talking.

How long is the presentation?

I would say it runs 60 to 75 minutes. It's because it's interactive.

Audience participation.

I don't just I try to get things back and forth. I can be a little entertaining at times.

You'll have light until, I mean, if that's a problem, is to 815. Yeah. Because you're at the longest time of the year. So 7 to 815? Fine by me.

I don't care. Whatever you decide, I'm open. I'm easy on that.

630, so people can go out afterwards. I really...

Okay, whatever. Whatever you think is best.

You're having young kids at 715 at night? No. I'm not looking for kids.

I'm not looking for kids.

It's more for adults, Lori.

Teenagers and up. I mean, I would want seniors. I would want, you know, I would want everybody.

It's 6 p.m.

I agree.

I agree, Vicki.

6 p.m. Then people will go out to dinner afterwards.

Whatever you decide, I'm fine with it.

Can I just interject something? And I just found out about this. There are a lot of teenagers right now that are riding motorbikes. And because of the noise, there's been objection. And now the town is not allowing the kids to do it. And so now they cannot do it, but they can go to East Hampton and ride it over there. That's wrong. They want to do this. They're not going to eat drugs. And they really, we're going to lose teenagers to something else. If we don't, if we don't address it, that's a different that's a different that's a different time.

I can address it by something. We can. Yeah, that's not. All right. June 12th, Friday night. 6. P. M. Okay.

I mean, it'll come up with an end. Well, we'll look at the time calendar and confirm it. That's a good day.

No, I just love Jessica, so.

Lori, sorry, Lori, I hear you on that topic. I just want you to know I hear you on that, and we could talk some more about how we can address that. I agree with you.

Okay, thank you.

All right. Do I have a motion to adjourn or anything else? Any other new business? I still have a question on doing this. Who do I have for assistance on the things that don't involve the presentation itself, but involve the communication of it out to the community so we get people to actually show up?

We lost a couple, a few people. Maybe we should put that out there again in an email.

Yeah, I would put that out there to the entire, all 11 people. Okay. And definitely in your subcommittee, you should be able to come up with that.

I want some of the education people. I know one person I want in particular.

I'll help.

I know that.

I'll help, but I don't know the process. You guys know, like, we have to tell reporters so it gets on the calendar or that kind of stuff. I don't know.

Just really quickly, I know we want to adjourn, but, like, so I see flyers a lot. around advertising our different events? Do we use social media ever?

Yes.

It goes on Shelter Island neighborhood, library, town website.

It's on Instagram and Facebook.

And who does that? Who does all of that? Clerks.

Clerks are amazing.

All right, cool.

All right, anybody else any other business July 11th is tentatively something that Vicki and I are working on with the police department, July 11th, June 11th as a potential presentation. We talked about maybe working on a drumming session for the kids that a social worker does. So it's kind of in the works and we're waiting to see if the funding will cover. The event event that's July, June, June 11th Thursday day before this event. No, I think July.

This is the day before. So we're going Thursday, Thursday, Friday.

Social worker who does drumming committee. This is a committee. It's not really. It's it's we're representing the health and wellness participating.

And just so, and on this opioid grant, $100,000 every year, we don't know how long that's going for, but we obviously have it. The problem has always been how to spend the money. They are looking for ideas. So it's one, but it's gotta be opioid related. Now, if it was for health education, all that other stuff,

The money has to be spent for education, not prevention, education and prevention. So this is an educational event for students, but it has to be engaging to draw them in. The food draws the seniors in, something else got to draw the kids in.

The other thing is on these on these things, a lot of these programs are at school during school, you know, from September through June. The other problem is and they have an assembly and usually it's targeted for elementary or middle school or high school, middle school, high school. The other thing is they have an evening session for parents. I've gone to the evening session, even though I obviously don't have any kids at school. nobody shows nobody i mean it's money that just sitting there our participation in terms of getting people out to these programs is a real focal point we've done a great job i mean most successful is the opioid awareness it's it's consistently grown but the thing that we did on brain health i've done good very good it was it was excellent i heard it was great it's great really bummed to miss it no that was that was that was very good so you know um We wanna do quality programs. It's not how many programs we put out there. It's really, if every year we could put together six or eight programs and their quality programs, we've already talked about three or four of them right here, but I would like to see us Realistically do 6 or 8 programs year 1. well. Well, advertised well attended.

And meaningful, you know, targeting something and then targets the stretch of our community from young to family, you know, the structure Islanders, shelter Islanders.

Yes, sir. Go ahead.

This is 10 seconds.

Given now the size of this group, and the fact that from what I can see, this is a group that doesn't have shrinking violets and speak. I think that 60 minutes is very unrealistic given the size of this agenda and that the meetings going forward should at least assume 90. I agree.

And I 1000% agree with you. The only reason I and I could say, of course, she's not here is Nancy has always been worried about me going beyond the the hour. It's been a real push for me to keep it an hour out. Jimmy, keep it to an hour. I agree with you, especially when we're only meeting once every other month. And you now realistically think that you can get this all done in an hour is not realistic. I would say 90 minutes. I'm all for it. And I concur.

As long as 90 minutes doesn't turn into two hours. Correct.

Well taken. But to a point, everybody speaks here. Nobody's got... We noticed that, Bill.

And that's a good thing. Jim, you never speak. I never do.

So it stops filming.

What's that?

End the meeting.

Yes, I'm in conclusion. Two favorite words. We have a motion to adjourn. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Okay. The ayes have it.