um yeah I want to begin on time too it's just 6:30 so that's good so so I'll call the meeting to order um take attendance um so Meg I'm present same here i'm
going to share the agenda we're going to move public comment towards the beginning of this and then we'll forge into the things we have to do tonight so um in terms of minutes I I think I don't
know where you are in terms of your minutes but I didn't get to mine so what about you we had this charge to get some minutes done by tonight yeah I I didn't get them done but I'm halfway done and I can have them done later tonight okay do
you want to arrange to have them done by early next week or Sure time next week so we could get them to each other before our meeting yeah I can get them uh well before be by tomorrow at the end of the day great great okay um what
about you what about your I I'll I'll say early next week well I'll do the same thing just to make it the same all right okay great and in terms of minutes for tonight how do you want to deal with that um
I I could just take some notes on decisions made if that's okay all right that'd be great and if if I can help you let me know decisions made like we just started the meeting yeah yeah well so we're going to see if there are anything
you want to hear for public comment there isn't um I don't think there's even anyone else on yeah so um Athena we're good have a great night yeah you too you too i hope you're doing okay Athena thank
you it's a rough time erica's going through stuff too i'm glad you can leave you can count on us to do it thank you all right you're home great have a good night thanks so um it looks like I saw your email um
on the agenda it has review charter committee request um in terms of work we're charged with doing but it looks like you checked in with Julian and we're going to wait until
um we have Colin Center on board right public survey and that's also what we all agreed we wanted and the meeting ended so quickly the last time that I afterwards I thought wait a minute one of us should have
said the subcommittee doesn't think we can do the survey until we meet with Collins but I didn't know so yeah I I don't think we did i think they still felt like it was our charge to deal with both but let's just try to get through
um the other survey right i I think we said as a subcommittee we should wait for Colin so we could tackle that once we get through the staff survey right and Erica strongly agrees okay i had a good I think you I emailed
you I had a good chat with her yesterday okay she strongly agrees okay so in terms of the town survey do you want to review like what people shared um because you have Bernie's
comments Andy's comments i put them into one document to review i reviewed it great so great they had some insightful things to share so let's see should we each say what we
think having since we both read them you want to start with what they shared first and then we can Yeah so let me just share stop sharing that and then I'll share what they have give me a second
[Music] great can you see that uhhuh it's a little bit on the side of the Okay pull it up now can you see that better there's perfect perfect yep okay so let's start with with Bernie's
and I don't know if you've reviewed it have you i have yes and I I uh am not sure I agree with him that one survey wouldn't work especially if we were to use Andy's five questions which could be answered in different ways i I hope I'm
not saying that just to make our job easier no no no i don't I don't think I don't see the need to make different um surveys but what do you but maybe I'm missing his point he says they're very different constituencies what they are
which they are yeah so I think he has some comments about the preamble too but let's deal with the questions first okay so he said um to look at the questions that he
offered um so I wasn't clear if he meant there should be a lot of distinction across role or there were um or is an approach to have just a few that are different
shows that here he has some for counselors some for school committee and library trustees so when he says in his review that what he proposed before might be helpful I don't think he was asking for
a lot of different surveys but perhaps more than just one yeah okay i'm not sure what where they'd be different but um but let's focus first on the questions i think that's what you suggested his questions unlike Andy's
are all about the charter okay rather than um Andy's questions um I'll jump to Andy's then if that's helpful sure i just think more general questions open-ended i did agree with
his comment about the preamble as well as Andy's too um but I think we have to offer more a wider opportunity than just the charter as we've discussed and in terms of questions Meg here's
what I feel about Andy's questions it actually captures like what I think Bernie is alluding to like they're more broad but if you look at the first question there's specificity about these folks sort of thoughts about
aspects of government them so I like Andy's questions i'm in agreement with you i think if we have these broad questions they could capture everyone so yes pushing forward I would say like I'm in agreement with these questions as
ones that might work where are you good i Yeah let me say that i just got a email from Julian and he's waiting to be admitted okay let's see if I can get him in here one second i see him he's an attendee i'll
allow him to okay yeah I didn't see him i don't know if you can let him in as a panelist or whatever but I can't I don't think I have that access there he is hi how are you all how are you doing good i don't think it'll let me uh will it let
me video i'm not sure actually yeah I'm not sure either it may or it may not but either way it's a shame Athena's already left um that's okay i'm happy to just call in basically so let's summarize where we are because we've just made
some big progress in our first uh five minutes excellent so I'll circle back Julian we checked in about the tasks that were allotted to us tonight um we are in agreement that the public survey
weight Collins center um we were just checking in about not being clear about that in our last meeting um it's a lot to do so we're in agreement let's wait for Collins um where are you with that i
I think it's okay i think obviously it's too much to expect the committee to start on the public survey at this meeting um and at the next town council meeting I believe the town council will vote to approve the funds for Collins
and then our committee meeting is on Thursday so the next time this committee meets Collins will be available to you so what I would advise is that you all don't do it today we don't do it at the next meeting we have Collins come in at the next outreach subcommittee meeting
and the Collins Center at the outreach subcommittee meeting helps you guys draft a survey and by the end of that meeting you all should have a relatively complete survey to move forward to the committee that would be my expectation okay so um just one other little piece
of information that'll come up later in this meeting um we've been in touch with Samantha Gifins i and uh she said the town has done a lot of surveys and she's going to meet with me or Erica i don't know if she can meet with two of us with the quorum problems but um and she's
going to show us some of the surveys the town has used before for different purposes but that's doesn't change our decision to work with Collins okay excellent so in terms of moving forward on what's been proposed we could perhaps once it's a go check in with
Collins see how they can assist julian I'm not sure i It'd be great to hear what Meg feel like we need to necessarily invite them perhaps we could just get guidance or models um and then Eric not Erica Meg if you wanted one of you wants to check in we could also look
at what's been done before too right perhaps craft something for not the next whole committee meeting but the one that follows does that make sense or no yeah i want to just say one thing u interrupting sorry you said you take
minutes Raphael but I'll do that because you're facilitating okay that would work thank you you're welcome i will agree that um if you if you guys are able to do it by just emailing Collins before your next outreach
subcommittee meeting and getting the information you all need um and then as long as that survey can be done not at this meeting but at the next outreach subcommittee meeting and be ready for the committee by the end of that meeting I think um I think it's perfectly fine
if you guys prefer to work with Colin Center via email because that will actually save us some money and save us meetings yeah it might expedite the process too so so go ahead i was going to say let's update Julian what what we
accomplished before he got on in addition to this could we just close on this though just in for you so the charge is for us to contact the Collins Center once it's a go and Julian you'll
let folks know about that process yep are you there yep that's fine um continue go ahead with what you're saying and then um you you said you you're scheduling an appointment with Samantha Meg yes next Monday or Thursday
so waiting to hear back from elect Erica because she might want to do it instead as the chair okay so so I would say like my proposal and let me know if you agree i think you should go ahead and check in with Samantha i think if Erica wants to
reach out to Collins that would be great and then you both could come back with things that we'll need to produce that public survey for the whole committee on the 24th so something for them to to review so we'll have things to review on
the 17th so by the 24th you all will have a public question we will thank you steps towards that Meg are you checking with Samantha resources for us to review on the 17th the same for Erica so bringing those things to the committee
on the 17th subcommittee meeting would be great right says wait let me get this the subcommittee meeting is bringing the outcome of the meeting of Samantha and the news about um co Colins's timing yeah so what's
important is for you all to bring resources perhaps models examples that could a process in terms of getting it done good all right okay you wanted to circle back to updating um Julian so we were Go
ahead you need to wait no you go ahead i'm just laughing because we made a really great progress in our speedy discussion about the uh staff survey go ahead i interrupted you okay no worries thank you um so
Julian just to update you where we are we asked for the whole committee to provide feedback about the town and official town official and staff questionnaire that Erica put together folks did bernie and Andy's feedback is here i don't know if you've had a chance
to review perhaps not i I did I looked over the survey and I did take a bunch of notes and have a bunch of feedback for you all um I also have feedback on Andy and Bernie's
suggestions um my I just didn't email it to you all in advance um I'm happy to send it to you all or I can honestly it'd be easier for me i can speak it at this meeting why don't you hear what we think and Rafael can fill you in on what we had just reached the point we had
just reached i I think that the latter is fine julian so Meg why don't we hear him out and then share sure good idea so you want to start with Bernie's Julian sure so first with Bernie's feedback I find
the idea of doing several different surveys problematic for two reasons um the first reason that I see an issue with several different surveys is we've already developed a survey sending us
back to square one to do several more surveys is going to both make the process longer and is going to complicate the amount of surveys we have to do review etc and will make it harder for the public to participate or excuse
me in this case will make it harder for the school committee library town staff and counselors because we need to coordinate now where all these surveys are going so I see it as adding extra steps to the process while sort of
bogging us down when the original survey although it needed some tweaks looked pretty acceptable to move forward the other thing that I see as problematic about this sur about the idea of doing multiple different surveys um for one
like in this this proposes it appears four different surveys so what I see is problematic about doing four different surveys is that it breaks people up in saying now it's allowing our committee
to say we value the advice of X person more than Y person and I'm not sure that level of discrimination is appropriate in this context because if people have something they definitely want to say to us about their position they will put
that but I don't feel like it's fair to say we value a current counselor more than a school committee member or we value the town manager more than
a fire employee or a school Julian yes just to save time Raphael I agree with you great awesome perfect i I do want to say though Julian I think there's an element of Bernie's ask which
is like these folks roles are different so therefore he feels based on my read that the questions need to be that which is different based on the role Meg and I feel like Andy's questions are
open-ended enough to capture or attend to his sort of concern um so we appreciated Andy's questions where are you at with Andy's feedback i thought Andy's feedback was excellent i
especially appreciate moving the for moving the platform to Google Forms from Air Table i'd personally never heard of Air Table before and I think um I think having it on Google forms will make it all the more navigable and accessible
for folks in the public who may be doing this on their phones or um on a QR code or whatever i had to spend probably 15 minutes logging in on my computer just to even look at the survey so I think it would be great if we can do it on Google
forms so Julian just first of all Andy asked six questions and we were just discussing that and feel that those six questions respond to some of Bernie's concerns because they're so open-ended different people can answer them in
different ways those exact questions before we get to the Google Docs do you agree with that i think that's appropriate i think we need more than just open-ended questions i think we need a mix of scaled questions yes and
no questions and open-ended questions i think the open-ended questions that Andy proposed are excellent open-ended questions they're well worded they work in this situation and I think we should use them but I think we also need yes or
no questions and like rank ranking questions as in like rate on a scale of one to five from strongly disagree to strongly disagree to strongly agree so my concern about that is then it does get to needing different surveys because
those specific questions uh change the nature of the survey in terms of people who are no longer on the council or uh the huge difference between someone who's on the staff and someone for example on the school committee that's the benefit of open-ended questions because we can go
there spaces to say more we can go back and ask more but this is just the first survey and if we maybe I'm just trying to make the job easier but I'm not sure I agree with you about the uh yes and no questions but but I do think Meg like
it's based on a question like you could have yes or no scale questions when it comes to a variation of what Andy asks so for instance okay he has a question about what aspects of town government structure are working well a question
like is town government structure working well is a yes or no question so it just depends on the question yeah it's just so open-ended that um I can't imagine anybody who knows a lot about the town government would be able to say
yes or no to that one but I I agree with Raphael i think like using that specific example again I think that would be the appropriate time for what's called a scaled question where basically we say do you believe town government is working well for example as Andy put it
and then we say one strongly agree two somewhat agree neutral four strongly or four disagree five strongly disagree and people agree or disagree with that statement that both gives us aggregate data data that the committee can work
with as a whole and say "Hey listen a lot of people see this as problematic and strongly disagree with this or a lot of people really like how this is working." So I think having um rewarding
some of those questions just to uh to do a mix of questions some open-ended some yes no some on a scale is important and first is because it gives us a aggregate data and secondly is because
it provides for an ease of use in filling out the survey you know we don't want people to be scared off of the survey by having to write six paragraphs all right so I don't agree but I'm going to step aside because I I want to move this along more than
anything i want to do this so I will rather than respond to that I will listen and be supportive of whatever you two come up with in terms of asking yes or no questions that are specific may I just say one more thing i personally think the question of how do you think
town government is do you think town government is successful is far too specific and open-ended i mean it's too uh but I'm hap I don't understand so I'm going to be go along with you two and um
not hold up agreement so so me that was just a briefly crafted example but I think Julian's ask is to have different forms of data to utilize in the report your point about like people not
necessarily always wanting to engage and write much I think is important to think about not everybody wants to write an enormous amount all the time so having those other questions could be helpful okay here's
what I would propose julian are you open to crafting some of those scale or open-ended open end skilled or yes or no questions yeah absolutely just give me a give me a date when you want them back for your
committee by and I can I can um craft some of those in a Google form or whatever yeah here's what I would say Meg i I would say we should if you feel like you don't want to make this decision here we're just crafting what
we think might work great we could have the questions that Julian proposes that we could also review along with the open-ended questions and have a conversation with the whole committee about what we talked about here i feel
I'm in agreement with Julian but it would be good to open it up to the whole committee so do we want to have a meeting of our committee next week before the larger committee meets i I feel like we should not okay i think I
want to take on the task of based on tonight's conversation like drafting what Erica proposed based on feedback and then we'll submit that to Julian for the whole committee
review okay and Julian's going to get those to us by middle of next week so it can be put into the whole survey i I would say before then um what's the earliest you could get that to me by June i'm working um tomorrow but I could
I could find some time to sit down at a coffee shop on Saturday or Sunday okay that works so by Sunday sure okay thanks so again to just reiterate will Andy's questions work for folks
so did you get Julian so focusing on Andy's six questions we're going to include them all i will I will actually be using Andy's six questions to uh I'll be using Andy's six questions
to model my scales off of to an extent thank you so we'll have play for folks to review Matt so if we circle back to what else folks wrote about there was stuff about the beginning of the survey just thoughts on
them bernie had some comments andy did just thoughts on the beginning of the survey i agreed with Andy's comments about not being what was the word he used preachy preachy um
where where did you read Preachy and Erica's beginning i didn't that was the thing i was trying to go back to Erica's maybe I'll do that right now get it erica's up and um on my phone or some on this i have
another device here i can get it up on this or should we pull it up on the screen you want You want me to pull up Erica's or Andy's comment well Erica's just so we can see what was preachy I actually didn't I meant to go back and look at hers to see what was preachy
because I didn't remember that and I didn't think of it where are you Julian with that comment beginning as preachy i think we should begin sort of almost the opposite of that we should begin we're not here to educate the public we're
here to take the public's feedback i think as little explanation as we can that will allow people to fill out the survey the better so here's what exists i tweaked it a little bit in terms of editing but the spirit of what you wrote
is here so I don't know if people want to review this and think about whether or not we need to remove a lot of it keep some of I think this is fine what you I like what you edited but I I the the preachy element I I
think some I don't want to assume what Andy meant but maybe he's referring to the second paragraph i I don't know i don't know what he meant by um I would say that
um that we could this is good first off I appreciate it Raphael so thank you secondly I would say that from the they are not intended is an opportunity to praise or critique any individual in
their official role i would remove that and just focus on the positive don't give people bad ideas just say um the questions are focused on how the elements and continue with the rest of that paragraph yeah so you'd remove that
line that'd be my take yeah okay where you meant get rid of in other words that's fine with me okay we're getting rid of the beginning of our praise or critique and we're keeping the rest we'll get rid of in other words yeah you might want to reward start of that but
it's pretty good the start of it that's true questions great folks are fine with that yes good job you did Raphael yeah thank you Raphael this is this is really good what about the last part of this fine
with that too so these folks I think Bernie said I think Andy wrote about brief is this brief enough to you all do you have concerns about the length it's pretty brief i think it's perfect in its length
perfect okay there was also um some comments about leng like position held how long I can't recall it's my notes aren't in front of me but yeah one question
comment was don't ask how long they've lived in Ammerst because they maybe don't live in Ammerst and that doesn't it's irrelevant what do you think Julian remove um yeah I agree i think I mean don't get me wrong I think it's awesome folks who
have lived here for 40 years have great advice to offer but we don't want to make it be a values judgment of like um if you did happen to just move here or if you truly just can't afford to live here anymore um that we shouldn't make a values judgment off of that what about
current am um what about the role role in terms of naming it are you fine with this part of the survey i think it's great to have a like are you an elected official are you school
committee town council library trustee are you a town staff etc i wouldn't former Yeah former etc i wouldn't go so specific as to say identifiable what do I mean by that i
wouldn't go as far as to say I am a former town counselor in district 5 okay now we know Darcy submitted a comment to us i wouldn't go that specific i would go enough that it can still be anonymous for people
of course Darcy would be happy to sign her name but anyway that's why I use it as an example i knew it wouldn't be uncomfortable okay so where are you all with this question should we rephrase it in some way the current role one
It could make it simpler to say what role do you have or have you had yeah I think that's that's better okay that way people could say like for example I am a school teacher
as opposed to I am a high school English teacher identifiable versus not identifiable okay so should we That means let's remove the drop down menu that's in play i don't know if you all saw that yeah
why not okay makes it simpler and we remove all these things too i appreciate that Erica did all this me too so we have to talk about I think um this part of Erica's um draft where are folks
with this considering we're an adding Andy's question julian's crafting some where are we with this part of the survey i think this is the main part that my comment had to be on but I may I mostly
covered it just about having a variety of yes no questions and um like scaled questions in here as opposed to just open-ended other than that I think it's relatively appropriate but we need to put in Andy's questions right
correct so are we So we need to be sure they don't duplicate these so we're keeping these and these questions and Julian's I don't know i I when I go through this I am going to not add new questions i am
going to use the existing questions from Andy and Erica but make but word them in a way that makes them multiple choice or um or selective questions as opposed to open response
i I I think there's an element of repetitiveness if we keep these and Andes where where are you all i agree i agree so how should we deal with these questions well should we put Andy's next to them
in terms of part of Andy's recommendation was having open-ended questions uh but what do you mean by next to them Mac well let me put them on shared on the screen next to each other i don't know how to do that but I'll I'll just I I don't think I Yeah let me
look at where Andy's on give me a second okay or I could read them you want to do that i'll just read a couple let me just pull it up here give us a taste of it um uh so let's see comments from
Andy oh come on okay his first he has some points keep it simple keep the survey to four or five open-ended questions um so his whole idea was not specific yes and no but anyway the first one was "What aspects of our town government structure are working well
from your perspective as a counselor senior perspective school committee blah?" That was the first one what aspects of our town structure are working well from your perspective and then fill out what category a second one was "What aspects have been difficult or challenging from
your perspective as a" and then fill in your role and the next one was are there specific quote pain points unquote in your experience with our town government structure that we should try to fix to make the process more effective equitable or efficient the fourth is do
you have any particular suggestions for changes to the charter at this point and the last is is there anything else you would like to share about the town charter or town government and how it functions me I'm so sorry i pulled it into the document just now you what i
just pulled it in i'm sorry i was looking up there and I didn't see it i'm sorry i'm staring at my phone it's okay i'm sorry you should have interrupted me no no no um do we want to How do you want to deal with this do you want to
strike some questions remove them based on repetitiveness what are your thought i think the first question is repetitive um what move this repetitive with Erica's with Erica's the first question of Andy's is sort of repetitive with
Erica's first question and same with the second question which one do we want to keep if we stick with the first question Erica's or Andy's but I remind us of what Erica's was because I liked Andy's but I don't have hers erica's in front of you if you look at She has zero zero one positive
aspect i like Oh okay i like Erica's better here just because it is a little bit easier like shorter and easier to understand okay okay do you want to add the bracketed elements or No no okay
just I'm not going far i'm just going to go over there but I have I'll hear you to turn the light on because otherwise I'll be in the dark pretty soon no you can wait me we'll we'll wait no I'm right here i'm just I'm right See I'm right next to the Okay and then there was light okay I didn't go away i just moved
two feet over so the second question is also a similar which ones do you which one do you want to keep this one on this one I like Andy's better yeah me too let's see if there's any this other one
deals with relationship this is a different one because some people may be I I like Andes because some people may not have you know school committee member for example an opinion about the their painoint might have nothing to do with
the town council or the manager yeah these aren't like uh these aren't like the first two that we looked at though i see them as middle right where are you um Julian I I like Erica's question um I think
that Andy's and Erica's are slightly different and it might be worth including both of them but I would hate to do away with Erica's question um to use your example Meg like I do think it could be expanded but school committee members
employees etc also have experiences with interacting with the town manager and town council that may or may not be favorable okay um let's go to the next i mean there's so many many things that
I've heard from people that aren't related to this like the amount of time between when you're elected and when you serve or but they they'll feel find a way to fill those in getting a lot of comments from people andy's final questions are about changes
anything else they're pretty general um let's look at um Erica's other questions though town council and town committee relationship where are people with that question i like that one i like that one too a lot actually based on based on
what we're doing now we've moved beyond the five so I hope people feel like you're okay with having more than five open response questions are folks okay with that i think I I think we should
make a few of them um yes or no or uh or sectioned as in maybe three of them be open response and three of them be not open response that's what you'll work on Sunday
absolutely great thank you and then what about how Erica organized this part of the survey positive aspects negative aspects what do folks think about that i didn't see a problem yeah I don't see
any problem with it and we try to keep the same with Andy's question in terms of organizing it in this way or including what are folks thoughts about that does that make sense yep yeah
we can figure it out piece out there was also this part of the survey um topics of interest where are folks with this part of the survey i like this just I like it not have I like it open-ended just the title
and not a lot of sub questions i'm on the same page okay so if we have so you Julia you said we're on the same page so if we have this there's a lot of open response elements here
yeah that's and the budget process you could add uh including participation and timing i don't know if that's too leading that's I mean I guess I almost feel as
though the first the top half should be yes no um or scaled questions and the bottom half should be open response um looking at this further the only reason I say that is because the bottom half
people might have very specific experiences that they'd like to express a specific issue whereas the top half are more generalized statements yep okay under budget can we
add including participation and timing or schedule or something the budget is a big topic i I would like that i also think that there's like some little things like do you I guess maybe even this would be a yes or no question but like do you feel like the rules of the
budget process are being followed i would I could put this on sat on I'll put this in on Saturday or Sunday when I sit down but that and also you know transparency transparency participation i agree i think those are all major
issues i would almost put a budget section open-ended preceded by two or three budget sections with um yes or no questions okay here's what I'm going to propose like Julian I don't know if you want to
go and rework things based on the organization that you're proposing to have this sure of i'm going to also work on it and just approach it from a lot of open response questions i'm going to keep what they have folks could decide
like what the approach should be when we meet next time as a whole committee okay should should you two reconcile it somehow early next week we'll just bring to the two to the table okay i'm not going to change their questions will
include Andes and Erica's as long as they're not repetitive um but we'll leave them as openended so folks can weigh in in terms of like what approach they would like to use does that work for you Julian sure
thank you both i'll take the minutes excellent so in terms of the beginning though Julian we'll keep it to what we reviewed tonight do you need me to send you what we reviewed if you want to send me what
we reviewed that would be great and then I'll use that to add in the yes no and scaled questions um as I see fit and we'll bring almost opposing um documents to the committee and see
sort of where people lean i guess that's the most democratic way to do it yeah I'd rather put it to the whole committee i'm in agreement with you i'm not sure meg was not it'd be good to Well I'll see when I see it okay i just don't want
uh I I worry about yes and no questions being simply oversimplifying it but I agree that open-ended uh aggregating the information is difficult it's very challenging so I'm going along and eager to see it when everyone else does right
and I just think that both should be put in the packet and we should have it where we like discuss and vote on an option to choose rather than sort of like trying to mesh the two live if that makes sense goodense to me okay
excellent yeah and that makes sense to me right me too so are we good with the this survey or questionnaire can we move forward yes we can and I unfortunately have to hop off pretty soon um we're doing some errands at my
house sounds good all right thank you thank you for joining no problem glad I could help all right bye bye so go ahead i was want hope we'll get to the three outreach events yeah I'm going to pull it up now um so we could talk
about it but do you have the to-dos for um Julian and I in a minute yes I have Julian is going to get a draft by Sunday and send it to us you're
going to do a draft also and we're going to send both out in parallel for discussion at the next meeting okay right all right right is that correct that is correct can you see can you see yeah that's good
so I made this all up just so we'd have something to react to uh and I I don't care when they are who we had said the three of us should do the facilitating of the early ones but I just uh put us
in combinations of two doing all three okay but that we would have different people leading the discussions at the small table although those could be us as well i don't know how many small tables we'll have I moved the dates a little later because
it's already early May early April i hear that and the thing is that I don't know when I if it's a Thursday the first one is a Thursday that would be one of our meetings if we go according to the schedule yeah so so I would say
um I think we should balance the responsibility okay i I thought like my thinking was we launch by facilitating the first okay just to get things started see how it
goes provide the other members with some material advice um so so let's put all three of us under that first one okay and then the others blanks yeah we'll just ask for
volunteers when we meet again yeah just put blanks there good it's just so that it's balanced does that make sense yep from the committee yeah okay good
and I'm not sure they need three but I figured since we're doing the first having three would be helpful yes okay so that's all set yep you could check in so it's a two-hour format um that might be too long but I that's what
we can discuss um say more about two hours and what that might why that might Well we have 15 minutes it might not start on time where one of us whoever is leading it explains what it is what the schedule the agenda is for the evening how it'll
work i don't think that'll take 15 minutes but things don't usually start on time then we would break into small groups of six to eight people and I've seen this done at Crocker and different pl different locations that have tables and there would be a facilitator and a
notetaker who would be assigned ahead of time i assume those would be members of our uh charter review committee or or others there are lots and lots of people around town who've facilitated small groups and then that would be 45 minutes which is kind of a long time on the
other hand I find it frustrating to be in a small group that's doesn't have enough time for any back and forth it's just you kind of go around once and um I thought having only three qu two questions is that how many are there three question is it two questions um
what is your experience with Ammeris government and public life and what is your involvement in public life in Ammerst what are there things about our town government that you wish were different open-ended um I mean these will just be everyday people I assume
and 45 minutes gives enough time for discussion and back and forth uh then the notetakers report out without attribution of who said what 15 minutes for that which is maybe too long and then some discussion 45 minutes so this
is generous time slots but it really allows for um getting into things in depth and back and forth and asking people for clarification and sort of fine-tuning which I find the process of breaking into small groups and then reporting
back often is frustrating because there isn't time to really look at anything in depth it's like popcorn but if you don't break down into small groups a small number of people dominate the conversation if it's all a big group and a
microphone it's it's not as participatory so that's why the two hours yeah I I hear I hear you um too bad more things don't start on time i I'll defer
but I think like those twoour sessions can be long my preference would be an hour and a half but we could bring it to the committee in terms of what they think is possible for them so I'll just I think it's Yeah it doesn't matter what the committee should discuss it anyway
whatever we do but this is what I think because of a lot of experience with the frustration of small groups uh Mhm uh so and I can if you want me to present it at the meeting I can explain
why I came up with it but you know I'm flexible i'll let go of anything if people don't like it but based on my experience this is what I think yeah okay um but question about the piece about involvement in public life in
Ammerst the why behind that how does that happen okay um well it gives a sense of what perspective people are bringing to it if they've ever been on a committee or they um what we could change that what would you suggest i wouldn't ask it at all do
we if you think about the overarching goal of this i think it's just feedback good good get rid of it so I think like if we are organizing these sessions based on feedback connected to elements in the
charter like I like the question about experience with Ammerst government i like the question are the things about government you wish were different i think like brief questions like that I would just lean into as opposed to
um I don't think we know it was a mistake i agree with you it's repetitive too get Yeah get it out of there i can't believe I did that it's so obviously not a use not helpful i I think for me like you you talked about um the small group to check in
folks say more about the why small groups you not not small groups you said you need people to check people in I can't recall you said something about maybe other committee members helping with that oh so who's going to facilitate the
small group okay um we could ask each group to pick somebody to do it or we could assign so let's say there's six of them um we need six people they could choose the notetaker when they get
together but having a facilitator who isn't one of the isn't someone who wants to give their own opinion about anything who's going to facilitate other people speaking is useful and uh I'd actually be willing to organize the facilitators
uh ahead of time so you're think you you um in addition to us you're looking for additional facilitators well it depends how many tables there are this is just the small groups yeah
um in terms of like other folks like running these sessions though do you think that might be a bit much well they don't have to run it they just facilitate the process of asking these questions and cutting people off if they
dominate and so on no I guess I'm I'm not clear then so I thought you were saying like you want to ask beyond Erica and I some additional folks to help with this process just with the small groups
right so if you're not doing it in the other sessions we're asking the other committee members to also get facilitators do you Well it could be that we would be three of them so we'd only probably need three more and it
could either be committee members or it could be other people we know who are good at facilitation i mean I can think of a number of people who who are good at facilitation would probably do this who aren't going to want to talk
spit the key thing is to be someone who doesn't want to put their own opinion in because they're uh they you know I so it have to be someone who's not didn't come to the meeting in order to participate they came to the meeting in order to
help other people participate yeah i I just feel like with that element maybe you you know a lot of folks and maybe you want to stay in the mix in terms of getting those facilitators for all these sessions but if it's not you it'll have to be
someone else right but I could I would volunteer to do that you want to facilitate all of these sessions or help help with all sure yeah are you But I'll help but I'll also recruit uh there's I mean for example
the town has trained a number of people to facilitate uh anti-racism discussions and it's a list of people that are probably available that's a totally different topic but I would be willing to get recruit people to be the facilitators of
the small groups for three sessions i'm not opposed to it but I know like being on some other committees like those folks are tapped asked right a lot so in terms of their availability it
might be tricky and I don't think it's great to have volunteers but I don't think we have a budget to compensate folks well I wasn't thinking they'd be compensated anymore than we are yeah but you we can we can eliminate it but what it means is we'd have just big mob big
group discussions and I guarantee 85% of the people won't speak i don't see it as a group discussion though i I think if we think about the name of this It's a listening session
right so I think maybe you see it the frame is a slightly different from me i think you come you share we listen we document okay i'm happy to do that but I'd like to we can also report that you and I have different approaches to it
i'm happy to do whichever it is but what what's your approach what do you see this session as being like people having dialogue and discussion no a chance for everybody to say what their experience is with Amoris
government and public life so if we stay there Meg like everybody has a chance to share people share the people who attend listen we facilitate we document what people share where's the discussion element
because I think me listening to you it seems like you would appreciate like some back and forth um um between folks who attend is that the case well yes and and and it's documented
because back and forth is going to pull out more nuance of what people's experiences are and uh what controversies there are i mean I'm happy to just have it be a big group but I'd like to have our larger committee
consider both options okay so say more about consider both let tell me more about since one option it seems like I mean I'm more interested in what you're thinking of because I don't you mean you're thinking of we would have a room full of people and a two of
or three of us or two people would facilitate and there would be a mic and people would take turns speaking in the big group in terms of like how it might be organized i think like the three of us would begin with like a framing why are
you here similar to the survey and then the survey is one way to collect information i think these listening sessions are another so maybe we could go in the direction that you want in terms of these folks come together they
talk about these issues um you bring out some nuance for me I feel like you're coming to these listening sessions for us to listen to your perspectives on these questions
and I think like say for instance you have and I don't know what the turnout will be 50 people in attendance right weed equally and we each facilitate these smaller groups where we ask questions and we listen if you want to
add an element of back and forth fine but I think when it comes to like hearing people's voice who attends I really want to push for let's have some format where we invite people to step
forward and share and try to get everybody's voice heard so as a facilitator that would be my move we want to hear as many voices as possible right you could respond to what people say but I would rather avoid back and
forth debate argument well it isn't debate so all right all right let's present both ideas but briefly do you want to write yours up have you facilitate you facilitated before a lot a lot and
um so so here's the thing i think to me like you're and you could put forth the idea but I think the discussion element in terms of an hour and a half how does that go how are you going
to phys facilitate a discussion say more i like I just want to hear your perspective well it's not a discussion it's not a discussion exactly necessarily when people are in a group of eight or six or eight people they speak more
candidly uh people can ask them questions when did that happen what do you mean and the person and there's a notetaker who's taking notes and it's not a debate necess it's more a chance that everybody speaks and you hear what people's concerns are and they get
fine-tuned and then they get reported back to the larger group and then there's general further comment of the whole group i can have a mic and people can come up and say that resonated with me or it didn't uh they comment on what they just heard from the other groups
um I'm happy it's fine whichever we do but in my experience people have more people participate if they do it through smaller groups first and then that gets added into a larger a larger listening session and people hear
things they otherwise wouldn't have heard yeah i'm just trying to get clear about what if you look at your format I agree with the introduction the small group 45 minutes um you
um have an element about note takingaking notetakers like what what are you thinking when it comes to the note takingaking so they write down uh the people's experience with things that didn't work someone in our group uh
applied to be on a committee and never heard back one way or the other um there someone you know people have brought issues to the council and they're never uh there's never any feedback or the public comment at the council meetings
is only once during the beginning of the meeting rather than at the time when the subject comes up that's being discussed when their comment would be relevant um and then someone else might hear that and say "Oh yeah that happened to me too." Um but there's just a lot more
that gets said and then it gets reported back you know in a summarized way this and so you hear it all at uh uh and people often speak with more honesty when it's in a small group
but I'm whatever we can try both we can try one one way and one another and see what we think yeah I hear you but I'm I'm dealing with like the part that focuses on like collecting information for the charter committee to review as a
whole so that notetaking element it's a lot of work so just trying to grapple with what that might look like so what are your thoughts like someone records notes and then they're transcribed to share with the larger committee like what do you think no they they write it
just like we are now and then we go around table to table and each notetaker stands up and publicly to everybody else reads what was said at that small group but it's it's tight it goes ding ding ding ding ding ding ding uh and it's and
then those notes come to the committee yeah and it's all recorded if we do recording but I that's another question if we're going to videotape it or if people stand up let's say we do the other extreme which is there's a room everybody comes there's a mic and they
take turns standing up and speaking how do we record that i guess we write it down as they speak or something we have to That's another That's a good question but either way uh we have to gather it for the whole committee the input that's
actually a question I hadn't thought of is how do we capture is it a vid i think a videotape is a problem because then somebody has to watch it and and transcribe it or something and it can intimidate people
on the other hand it's a recording of it so I don't but that's another question but I think we should bring these two approaches to the committee and see what they think i I don't think I have a approach necessarily i'm just trying to get clearer on like how we get the
information that's shared here back to the larger committee just that's so either whatever format we use we have to figure that out so I would say um someone we either hire someone to
take notes or one of us takes notes uh and or two people take notes maybe going back and forth um and ask people um I mean if they're standing up publicly and speaking there's attribution so we can ask them
to say their name and we can then go back and speak with them again if something's not clear in the notes but I think one of us has to take notes and I guess there will be at if it's a large group and all of the comments are made to the full group with
a microphone say there's attribution we'll know who it is so that's maybe that's better that we know who people can't make a comment anonymously the way they can in the smaller
group and maybe that's better i don't know but I think we have someone has to take down the notes whether it's one of us or we hire someone yeah and we we I can't recall if we have
a the budget to hire notetakers i can't do we I don't know i doubt it i don't haven't seen a budget except for the Collins Center and um it had something for food yeah so So that's something we
should inquire about i think I I do think Meg like note takingaking in these instances is hard and yeah if we're relying on committee members to do that it's a lot if you think about the minutes already in terms of Yeah well we
could get a we could hire someone um it needs to be somebody who's good at it and they would have to do it typing so they could write faster mhm um and still I think they're either way we have to take notes or keep records yeah do you
want to unless we v videotape it pardon and even if you videotape it like just someone will have to review right so just to get information back to the whole committee so how how should we take this
back it's we should ask about uh the how will we record how will we our question about right documenting what's shared right so getting the word out when we
meet with Samantha next week we can ask her about that but we have to the other question somebody has to book the three sites the three locations Mhm um make sure they're available at that
time uh I don't know if that's something the town can do for us that's why I put the first one a month from now because there are quite a few things to figure out okay okay yeah
there are so we you went through the small group element i love that well and you said the general discussion at the end is just reporting back out yeah people get triggered or when they hear something they might say I agree with whatever that came out in that small
group that's exactly what happened to me I hadn't remembered until and then someone else will say I don't agree with that you know I thought blah blah blah so you have percolating what's been said from the small groups uh fine-tuning it and re and different perspectives on
those same points okay someone might say you know well that's easier for you to say because you're white and you don't really know what it's like to be a person of color blah blah blah and then someone else will say "Well that's true i don't." But um or someone else might say
um I work all the time so how the heck am I supposed to go to a meeting that's at 2:00 in the afternoon um because people say more things that are inspired by what they just heard yeah so so why don't we do this similar
to the Julian and I sharing I'm going to propose something slightly different um I think there it's important to have an element where you're encouraging people just to answer these questions
document and certainly if folks want to engage and discuss unpack further there could be part of the meeting that's about that but for me people who attend come share your answers to these question what's your experience with Ammerst government and public life if we
could hear from everyone that would be great if there's a mechanism in play where they could document it that would be great i in terms of facilitating something like this would have some presentation tool there where people could come to the meeting
and they could begin by answering these questions at the beginning of it just shortly answer these questions and then we could unpack what's shared in small groups but I want to have like
a a mechanism in play where we could record perspectives quickly and the notetaking i get it in terms of like hiring somebody to help but I want these listening sessions to have something
available where people can share your perspective quickly in a way that could be taken back to the whole committee okay i would say like my proposal would be introduction to why this session's about government where the charter review
committee will begin with you taking some time to think about these questions there's a platform like called menty meter use your phone write it down answer these questions for us briefly five whatever amount of minutes and then
we break off into like smaller groups to talk more about said question so can you write that up because I'm not sure I followed Huh i will so I just think that's sounding like a three-hour meeting no no no it's not threeh hour
like I have you ever used those types of tools like menty meter or other things maybe not no so it's it's like but does everybody have to install a a program no if people have their phones those people
have used these types of platforms before easy but we'll also have paper copies I think for folks to answer these questions quickly we will why don't you write that up and and I'll write mine I want to change some things about this
based on this conversation um I'm not quite sure what where we are though with what we bring to the committee because we're bringing you're going to bring this you say you want to tweak this a bit i think what's most important though is you have some
proposed dates there's some thoughts about the facilitation volunteers will be needed the format we could grapple with that with the whole committee okay so I want to change for example the North Ammerst Library isn't big enough and make it
this survival center where they've I've done this exact same thing and they have small tables and it really works well yeah I hear that i went to a really good anti-rac okay but I'll let's um so you'll work on
a parallel one and I will um do this one again and we'll give them a choice uh see what they say good okay great i think my main like thinking is about how will we get
information from folks that informs this process right in my opinion is how do we get information from folks who don't usually participate but have just as much insight as other people yeah that that's a whole lot to think about so if
we focus on like you want to see how do we get more people who don't usually participate could you say more about that like how would you what what are your what are your thoughts about that well I think that um first of all it's outreach to make sure people know about it and come but that's the benefit of
the small groups because you go around and every person says something um and then they can go back and forth and say "Yeah actually now that I think about it that's what happened to me or my I heard of that as well." Um and someone else could say that's absolutely not what
happened to me or that's that's doesn't why didn't you try I don't know so you everybody participates that way in a smaller group and some people just don't participate in a large group with a mic they like to listen and maybe they're
uh thinking things uh but if let's say we have 50 people for each person to comment for one minute that's 50 minutes right there i mean that's just not going to happen everybody won't speak i I think from my read on it though it's
you get people there that's a win and I think when you say people who don't participate I was thinking like thinking about what our outreach plan will be to target those folks who don't participate if someone Well that's what this that's what this is
yeah but you have to get people there man right that's So I think we should talk a little bit about what that might look like right samantha's gonna Samantha is one of I've she and I came
up with two times that I could meet with her and maybe it should be Erica instead but if it's depending on what we're talking about if it's this maybe it should be me or uh or me and you but Samantha has all sorts of ideas for getting people to come to these things
okay and this thing I went to at the survival center there were probably 80 people there talking about racism enamored their experiences the problem of course was there weren't enough people of color and they didn't um but that's another whole
problem uh that's a really totally different problem how talking about race in Amoris with mostly white people um there's only so far you can go with that but that's Yeah but there were I don't know 80 people sitting around there were
probably 10 tables with eight people at each table I'd say so so that's where I'm at Meg like I think you were sharing like some moves that facilitators could utilize to have people engage speak once they
show up for me it's like yes hopefully Samantha helped but we could put our heads together to think about as people have lived there for quite some time like how do we get more people to come out to events like these right so why don't I report on my meeting with Savan
Samantha or Erica if she has it i have a feeling it won't work for her because she's missed work for the whole week okay and the times when Samantha can meet her during the workday uh but you so right now be without
checking in with Samantha like what would you say would draw people out to an event like this what what are your thoughts so first of all we would get Nick Grab to do an interview with one of us explaining how important this is and then we would work through the did you see the list of the many different ways
that the town has of doing outreach through uh the different places to announce things on the website phyllis Lair's column in the newspaper um we can do it through the um different civic
organizations the chamber the uh business association uh the uh different the different civic organizations in town um so I think you know I mean the other question is do we want to get people who
live in apartments i mean that didn't go any Nobody's gotten back to me about contacts for emailing people who live in apartment buildings for example except Bernie did but it was with a question um or do we want to get university students and we you know we can put things in the
Ammeris College newspaper or the of course those I don't think that's going to be productive frankly because those students haven't participated much in the town but that was one of the things people talked about but that's why I put this late you know a month away because
it's it takes some time to do that kind of outreach and Sam that's what her job is to do that we're a town project and she's the town communications manager so she's she'll put some u muscle into this
yeah and how would what are you thinking about materials used or art that's a good Yeah i think we'd have to we'd have to have our little blurb that tells that we've written that tells who we are and what we're doing um I don't think we
want to have written surveys but if we did we could bring those or we could say here's something you can take home and send if we've finished the survey by then you know it depends on the Collins Center we could have surveys as another way that people could respond um
although if they come to the meeting they're probably that's what the way they're going to respond um yeah I'm still getting the word out though like remember we talked about like maybe having a visual graphic to advertise some things yeah
what's what where are you with that you think we could I think that would be great but I'm not a graphic artist and uh our committee's been really good our larger committee has been good at thinking up ambitious ideas that don't happen um so whether we have a graphic
or not you know a megaphone uh I think it's high time we just get get the word out that this is what we're doing that the current will run something the Ammerst India will run something the Emer Indies has been running articles already about how you
know what's happening with the charter review committee and um uh Anita Soro writes up every one of our meetings in the indie so they know the people are you know hundreds of people read that every week
yeah I I do think I'll try to work on a graphic we'll see what folks say i just think like different folks different folks some people might engage with the indie i think there's a demographic of folks in town who get their information from other spaces oh yeah current
Samantha could help in terms of like there are a lot of social media spaces for younger folks that might be should be in play for this right ammeris forward will get the word out they have a big network and list uh the
progressive coalition there are a lot of there are a lot of networks and email lists their neighborhood lists all three co-housing communities have email lists um I know a number I know at least 10 neighborhood lists and people who said they would use
it the South Ammeris group uh that's one area where I've made some progress in that outreach list is the neighborhood email lists um it would be good to hear from Samantha with her on how active the town is on Instagram and spaces like that too
so where where are we with this what's I'm You're going to write your version up i'm going to write mine why don't we do the questions as a separate piece i I like the questions i I'll keep the questions absolutely but they're not necessarily attached to mine they're
attached to either one right yeah yeah yeah so what do you mind sticking with these questions no they're great um and also um do we another question is will we have do we want to make the survey also available
we and let's put them done by then say that again yeah let's hopefully it's um and and let's put these questions in order uh or well I guess we've done that but I'd say how do we
record what we hear under recording um so it's not just a tape recording or a video but it's how do we make a record of it could be handwritten or I know in the charter I was on the charter commission and we had uh
listening sessions and we all just sat there and listened and we we didn't write any we didn't docu documented especially but maybe you know it was sort of lame but yeah I've run some sessions like these so it'll be great to hear what the whole
committee Yeah okay so I'll work on my version and you work on yours and we'll see what they think yeah and mine just has a minor tweak in terms of adding something where feedback can be shared quickly right but you don't want to have the
small groups right you want to have one big group i do no no i think we begin with that feedback mechanism at the beginning of the meeting where people pause think share and then we have our small groups i'm just adding one thing to your
proposal okay and say again what that is well I'll look at the tools that exist and sort of think about what might work for this okay questions i would say we'd begin the session with a chance for
people to document it in a way that we could take back so they have a chance to sit reflect write they'll share more later but I think like you don't want to leave with you have these lively discussions that are enriching informative but we
don't document that's the tricky part yeah I agree that's why the notetakers they have to actually write things yes so where that's where I think like that charge is tough so we'll see what folks
say okay could definitely be helpful but I think having something where the information is captured quickly it to me is just easier okay and I'd be curious what that is whether it's So there are a few tools
that you could use okay good all right so I think we did it i'll do these minutes we did we did the minutes are going to be you know decisions and followup and highlights anything else there's a question about new business
oh nope yeah so lots to do how are you juggling all this well I don't go to work oh okay okay okay okay this is I've gotten myself in over my head though a little bit but um I don't
have a I don't work anymore i have I'm I worked my butt off when I did work i had a big job but um now I don't yeah okay okay um but I you know I'm doing I'm very involved in this history project related to the Mill River okay very nice
and we've identified 44 mills that were from 1720 to 1930 along the just the stretch of the Mill River from Kushman to North Ammerst uh and uh we're writing it we're creating a kind of uh public
public proc public project so Okay so during these listening sessions perhaps we could find some time to talk more yeah I'd love to know more about what you do yeah we could definitely connect then um time to adjourn yeah I I so
moved a second have a good night all in favor thanks for spending all this time i respect your commitment to this work well and ditto ditto ditto all right have a good night thank you so much you too Raphael thank you