nuts. Maybe you don't know. All right. Good afternoon everyone to the council leading meeting of May the 5th of 2025. Uh want to make sure everybody has read their minutes. Michael does a very good job getting all
the minutes I think bars every month. I just um for the purposes of being official, I want to make sure that you all know any person may make a video audio recording with open session of any meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium subject to reasonable requirements of the chair. As to the
number, placement and operation of equipment used so as not to interfere with the conduct of this meeting. Any person intending to make such recording shall notify the chair for with all documents referenced or used during the meeting are to be submitted in due to the chair pursuant to the open meeting of public records law. All documents
shall become part of the official record of the meeting. Anybody going to be recording other than us? We are recording this. Okay. Me too. I know. Uh before we start though, I do want to make a little announcement. to uh wish all of our Hispanic viewers
and others in the city of Gardner a happy sinco de Mayo day today and we're going to hit the bar after okay so everybody looked at the minutes uh from last month
any uh I have a motion make a motion separate Okay. Um, do any discussion? Motion with a second. Okay. Second. Second. Okay. Second by Barbara. All right. Any discussion?
All in favor? Any opposed? So, before we move to the next item, when you speak, please make sure your microphone is on and close to you. Um, it's the only way we can pick up the sound on the recording device. Okay. Our next thing on our list is the
treasury report zone. We're trying to turn it in. It's not it's not am I right? All right. The treasur's report was in your packet and um on page
one you can see that we're the top part we're right on budget. Okay. Nothing um big there and we're only got two more months. This is the April. We'll have May and June and that will then be the end of the city's fiscal year, but everything seems to be okay. Enough
money to pay Mike, but we don't have enough money to buy a new car. And then just below is the gift fund. And we did get some gifts. Uh 25,58512. So, we have a nice balance
there of 91,93113. Before you go on, I just want to make a couple notes for your edification. And um the months of of May and June caused great angst for our treasurer because this is when we have to start
reconciling all of our accounts, doing adjustments and changes, and it may confuse you as well. So, I just want to make sure as we go through each of the different accounts, I'm going to let you know what are my extemporaneous notes and reminders, what those mean um so
that you don't get um kind of overwhelmed with this. I do want to make sure for the general fund, you know, and understand, we have transfer some line items. I can transfer budget amounts appropriations between salary accounts
to salary account and I can transfer appropriations or budget amounts between operation accounts to operation accounts but I can't do the latter. I can't go between I'm sorry the the vice versa. I can't go between operations to salaries or salaries to operations. So they're
very strict about that. Um what does that mean? I'm It looks like we're probably going to have a little bit of a surplus from the amounts appropriated for the salaries. Not a lot, uh, but a little bit that's actually going to be
used to diffuse some of the, um, contracted amounts for the salaries, especially as we look at um, a little bit more for the for the meal manager, for example. So, we're going to be over on the mail manager, which should be
under on all the other salary items, and be able to make that up. I'm not worried about it. I am worried about the operational expenses. There's no slush in the operational. Today, I transferred about $700 of supply expenses from the
operating account into the revolving account. You won't see that transaction until next month. It's going to free up about $700 in the OP account in the general fund operation accounts to allow me to cover some expected deficits in
the tech information technology line item. But um we're probably going to be about $3,000 over on um on our energy and utilities and there's nowhere in operations to make
that up. So today I submitted a request to the city auditor and the mayor to ask for some available free cash to cover that deficit. Now that deficit isn't because we over, you know, we bought extra stuff. It's energy. And just doing an
analysis. Last year our energy we had about a $6,000 surplus. So this year we're already uh $6,000 almost $7,000 more than we were last year. and we still have to pay our May and June utility
bills. Um, additionally on energy and utilities, our aotment uh from the solar breakdown, so the city has a solar farm and they they give a credit based on percentages to different departments. We
went from a 2% of that solar energy uh buyback to 0.5%. So we've uh encountered a lot more expenses from the from the electric utility that is also going to be adjusted. The the city auditor knowing
that is going to uh change the allocations, increase our percentages. However, it doesn't it can't go backwards. So any of the bills we've already paid, they're paid. It's not going to really change the deficit projection for energy and utilities. Um,
and you'll also notice that we were overbudget on overtime. We spent year-to date $9405. Our budget was $500. So, we're $440 over budget. We transferred $500 from the uh standby to the overtime
account. So, that now allows us $1,000 in overtime, but zero for on call. I don't really expect and we have to do that at the end of the year because on call is really something that we expect during the winter. Um I don't think we're going to get praying to God we
don't get a blizzard between now and July ones. Um and then if you remember and it's in your minutes back in February I reported um revenue for the gift account at $1550 was actually $1,50. So, we netted
that $500 out in this report. You won't see that going forward, but I just wanted to make sure that you had um I had your attention on that for this for this report. So, okay, you saw my opening uh
statement about um this is the end of the year when accountants have to be balanced and there's lots of transfers and u so any questions on the first page. Any questions on the regular budget or the gift account? Any question at all before we turn it back over to
Mike? No. Okay. Go on to page two. And now he's going to explain everything. And because there's a lot of Terry has asked me to kind of explain the reports. There's a lot of things in here that are
going to be happening but haven't happened yet. So you'll see a lot of items that are highlighted in yellow. Those items highlighted in yellow, we are probably going to recclass to another expense account. We're going to move them from revolving. For example, you see Google,
we're going to reclass that to the tech grant expense because it's a tech grant expense for our Google Chromebooks. Um, and we we weren't able to put it right in the tech grant initially because we weren't given we had to ask for we weren't given the change order before
those expenses were incurred. the change order was agreed to. So now we can rightfully um recognize the tech grant expenses that were booked initially to revolving account. The rest of them you can see there's no dollar amounts next to them.
So the Acrobat there's no dollar amount in that yellow. That transfer didn't take place until this week. So it won't show up until the March 31st. But all of those highlighted sections will have an
amount populated on for the May 31st um finance report. Just so you know, I've also if you take page 207, put a big X through that in your main packet. We're going to put a big X through that because you're going to now look at the
addendum of page one of four on the addendum. The reason for that and I apologize um going through all these transfers I had my focus on expenses and didn't look at revenue. So I put the wrong amount of revenue for the month of
April. Um the actual revenue was 356123. I had only shown in the initial report that I created 144925. That's really the the primary change in the revolving account um addendum that you have is it reflects the actual
number uh amount of income and you have the new report so you can just you can just uh throw away the old one or disregard it. Um all of the POS that were under the revolving account have been liquidated.
So that 70868 we used to show as an encumbered or contracted amount. It's gone now. The 51125 is gone. Now I I put a note in there just so that you know because it had been reflected in past months that those were liquidated. So
the LiQ keeps it from being tabbed or tabulated. Um so that just is for your you know purposes or reference. So, as we look at the page 204 of the addendum
on the back, our actual expenses to date, 31,76811. Um, that is correct. This month's expenses were 286797. Um, that leaves us a balance of
4568973 in the revolving fund. We now have a new uh purchase order for Wilson Bus for the program we're doing on June 11th. So that will be liquidated before June 30th. So it shows now that we have an
available balance of 438.88973. That's an important number for you to remember because we can't exceed 60,000 in this account. So, I'm hoping that the request
to the city council goes through and the change is made on the maximum allowable carryover on the revolving fund before the end of the year. Um, if not, we'll have to do some adjusting and uh some again account bookkeeping stuff. I don't
really see it as a problem other than page uh let me just ask well no I'm going to say it. other than the impact it'll have on the FY 24 state grant formula grant. If we're not allowed to
carry over the higher amount, then we'll reallocate expenses from the 24 grand account back to the revolving account so that we can draw down that balance and carry over a higher balance than the state grant. It really is just a
bookkeeping function, but just so you know, and and that takes time and effort to track. Um that's it. It's a little bit problematic. And so Terry and I were talking earlier like why do we have all these notations? Well, in April, May,
and June, it is every single day kind of reviewing the budget and stuff. And if I don't make notes, I sometimes forget my name in the morning. So, if I don't make notes, I certainly won't remember what I did. So, that's why you see a lot of these um these highlighted sections and
notes. At the very bottom of page two of the addendum, you see that XX 2062943. That's what we're proposing to move from expenses in revolving account to the state grant.
Now, if you're paying attention, if I move $20,000 of expenses from the revolving account to the state grant, that's going to give us an available balance of 63,000 bucks, right? And the reason it's X and the reason these
numbers aren't populated is because we can't make that change until we know we're allowed to carry over 60,000 bucks. Does that make sense? All right. All right. Give me a raise. What's that? I said I thought you were
going to give me a raise. Oh my word. Um, yeah. And we're, by the way, we're in the throws of budget season, too. So, not only we reconciling last year, we're in the the process of of of uh preparing and talking about and going through all
of the hearings on our 2026 budget. Any questions on the revolving fund? Yes. So, make sure you use your mic. You're done. So just to recap on it's for 20,629 that's really a transfer of it's
really irrelevant other than for your information. It is a proposed transfer of expenses right that will happen in May between the revolving account and state grant and the state grant we don't have um
how does that work? We don't have a a ceiling on that either. Nope. So we could have like $100,000 in the state and it wouldn't matter. Nope. We can't exceed what the grant amount is. So we can only have the amount that they have
given us. Y okay. Thank you. Any other questions on the revolving fund? All right. Let's go to the state grants. Um thank you Mike. Thank you more Terry. Um, I've adjusted out a lot of the
contracts and POS. Um, I've had to do some projections and the reason I have to do those projections is because I kind of need to figure out what our actual expenses are. Move, reallocate, reclassify expenses that should be appropriated to say the general fund
from the state grant account. So, um, what you have, let's just talk real dollars for now. Um right now we started with 6771084 on July 1. We have had in total expenses
$35,39243 of which $6,277 were incurred this month. That all seems pretty pretty darn good. Um, if you take after that an additional $7,000 because it's it's tracked in a
separate account under the state grant, we have $7,000 in outreach expenses which leaves us a available balance of $22,142. Why does it leave us an available balance of that? because
there's an additional $6,200 of POS that we now kind of expect and that that's what's fluid about it. So, the only thing we really need to know is that our total expenses were
$35,392. Our beginning balance was $64,710. And that if you take that 7175 plus the 22, that should be the 29,000 um that we have left. Okay. So 64 - 35 is 29. 29 - 7 is 22. That make sense?
Anybody have any questions on that in particular? So 64 71084 was the beginning amount. We're going to subtract 3539243 from that. It should give us about 29,000 minus $7,17548 should give us an available
balance of 2214293. But we have, if you go back to the don't go back to the revolving account, we are expecting to transfer expenses of about $20,600 from the revolving account. That's fluid because I really want to be
able to transfer enough expenses to zero out this account. So, whatever that looks like as we get closer to the end of May is what we're going to do. And it's also important for you to note that we have contracts best guess right now of about
$6,200. So the $6200 from the 22 leaves us 15887. We're also going to transfer out uh as we normally do the expenses related to the outreach coordinator into the general fund. It's another
$4,600 less of expenses we have, which will give us an available balance of about $20,000 in that state grant. And and I'm being very tenuous about transfers right now until we know
the status of the city council uh vote to increase the the limit on the carryover from the revolving. All right, that's the state grant. Any questions on that? Those are the only two addendums. Uh the rest of the report is in the original packet.
Any questions on the state formula grant? All right. I have some good news and I have some bad news. The good news is that uh senior centers formula grant allocation seems to be untouched this year in the budget, which is a good
thing. The bad news is it looks like they'll be increasing us by a dollar per senior, which will result in another roughly $5,500. Um, and why is that a bad thing? Well, we're still carrying over a balance from the FY25 grant according to
FY26 with $5,000 more than we had at beginning FY25. So, um, that's a good thing. I'm I'm being funny. Uh it gives us a lot of opportunity as we grow into a new facility and things like that to
be able to cover uh new programs and services we want to do. All right. State technology grant. We're closed out. This is done. This is the the last um vestage of any financial
information that'll be coming from the state formula grant. I mean the technology grant uh that ended as of March 30th. We did the final reconciliation report was due by April 30th. I think we submitted it on March 15th, March I'm sorry, April 15th, April
17th, right around there. Um the good news is we got a lot of equipment. The bad news is we're turning back about $16,000 in this grant. Um, and that $16,000 was entirely related to
um some some of the the stuff we had hoped to get. Um, we wanted to do we got the two-year subscriptions for the Chromebooks. I just have to figure out what this was. Um, oh, the the trainers. So, the
trainers and the instructors, we weren't able to incur those. And I made a pledge as part of this year because we didn't um hire really use it and I can't say we didn't. We spent $300 in instructors. We had four six week sessions. Only one of
our six week sessions cost us any money. So that's that's another reason we have the savings is that we were uh blessed to have a number of techsavvy volunteers come in and not ask for pay. So we're able to draw that down which is okay.
And it's a good problem to have, especially going forward where the tech money isn't available to pay their salary. We don't have to worry about like where do we get that money from? Um, so the tech grant, that's it. We're done. We're still doing some training. We actually our numbers looked way better than I thought they'd look on the
on the uh on the tech grant. So I'm really excited about that. Um the number of sessions, the number of lendouts, the number of Zoom, virtual hybrid uh programs were higher than I thought we would end up seeing this year because
we're so late in getting it started. That madam treasurer is all I have to offer. Well, thank thank you Mike and I think it was a very good explan explanation. I hope everyone understood. I did have one question by
Ali and that is about the money for the FY25 grant u with all the possibilities of cuts here and there that money has already been confirmed to FY25 already has been confirmed 25 is done. Yeah, we
have that money in our account. Okay. Yep. FY26 which starts on June 1st that money is not in our account and typically best case scenario they drop it in in October of that year. So will front expense that
will the city allows me to deficit spend until the money comes in. We're okay good and okay on the check grant you said the 16,000 close to 16,000 we have to give back Yep. to the state. Yep. Is that one of the stipulations when we got
the grant? Yep. And what was it? Within a 12-month period, everything had to be expended by March 31st. No. And so there's no way we can retain that 16. Nope.
So my next question is is now as the let me just pipe in so that you all know there were a lot of there were a lot of learning opportunities for us. One of the things we found, for example, is getting the equipment took a lot longer than we thought it was going to take.
The need boards were 6 months behind. Finding instructors and student interns were almost impossible. And we really we really beat the bush to to get folks to come in and do our tech classes. Those were two of the big ones. Our other last
remaining one and I explained this to you last month was when we did our first hybrid program. The quality of the hybrid or virtual programs was terrible. It was absolutely terrible. The sound was terrible. The audio was terrible. The video was terrible. Um we used a
single camera, the handy cam and tried to to track and uh follow the instructor the classes. It really looked goofy. One of the things we learned immediately is we need a better way to produce these um online events with the help of Maja Community
College and GET Gardener Education Television. We created a model of mobile production car which includes two highde cameras allows us to pan and zoom and tilt and swerve and we can get dynamic content not just static
content which is really it's pretty cool. We've used it. We're still have a long way to go on that learning curve. Let me tell you, we were on the we were on the lefthand slope uh at the very bottom, but we have great partners uh including the Templeton Senior Center in
learning how to use this tech more efficiently. So, those are some of the things we learned that we were able to share with our cohort as well. My my question is actually we on the short term we got all this great equipment, right? on the long term, have there any
provisions for things like software upgrades? Um, you know, nope. Maintenance of uh things or updated uh some of these things will be updated, but before you blink your eyes and where and if if so, we're going to put the in
the budget as far as, you know, if we need more Chromebooks down the road, we need another router or whatever. I'm just thinking of that as a yeah that's a question down the road. Um there there are no provisions in the tech grant to put that aside. We can
resourcely can yeah in so our Chromebooks are serviced until 2032 7 years. Um, so they'll be continued to give updates and things like that, which is kind of good, but that doesn't mean that one isn't going to get broken, one
could be lost or stolen. That's kind of small money. Um, the big money is in the infrastructure. And by the way, this grant was for $84,000 between two senior centers. So our net of 16,000 is really a hit of about $8,000 to the Gardener
Senior Center, 8,000 to the Templeton Senior Center. Really important note. The other major thing though that you don't know and that wasn't reflected in the original grant. It's got about $58,000 worth of equipment in kind including when we started this tech
grant. The IT department said, "Oh, how can we support you?" Well, let's first get fiber to 294 Pleasant Street. So, we now have high-speed fiber lines at 294 Pleasant Street shared by all of the tenants, which is great. and let's let's be proactive. At the
same time, let's fund getting fiber down to the new location. So, when we move in there on day one, we'll have simply the the best connection you can possibly have, a dedicated fiber, uh line to support our technology. Some of the things that we have to think about, um
we had to get a whole bunch of WAPs, wireless access points, controllers, switches. That equipment was really expensive with $18,000 worth of equipment. um that we were able to get for a controller for 50 wireless access
points. I can't use 50 wireless access points here, but I certainly will in the new location. So, um thinking ahead, this grant has helped us to build the infrastructure we need for when we move. Who's the provider provider? You know, your Wi-Fi?
No, it's not Gateway. No, it's probably Verizon. And it's not podcast or it it's not the the same pipe that goes around the neighbors. This is a dedicated fire line for municipal
buildings. Okay, cool. Any other questions? Okay. Do I have a motion? Can I have a motion on the treasures report? I'll make a motion that we accept the treasures report. Okay. And uh any
discussion? Okay. All in favor? All right. And any opposed? All right. So voted. We're all set on that one. Thank you, Terry, for your report. Thank you for explaining everything. Uh next thing here we have is the old
business updates and new business of prior meetings. Um and now this will disappear from the agenda going forward. The technology grant we just talked a lot about that was going to be that report. Um it won't be under anymore. The
technology grant is uh now concluded and um I think it's been pretty successful. What really is going to determine its success is how we are able to integrate online and hybrid programming in the next 12 months. And I think that's going to be a challenge. So um one one that'll
be fun but it's still going to be a challenge. Okay, next thing on our next thing on our list is the new business. Just so that you know, if you're using your printed off copy of the agenda, the next item on the agenda is election of
officers. Um, with that, Mr. Chair, if I may. Yes, you may. Okay, I'm going to um I'm going to convene this just because Ron is eligible for reelection. Um, so May is typically our time to elect officers. We have four officer
positions. That is the chair, the vice chair, the treasurer, and the secretary. There's a fifth position which is the CEO, but I'm going to allow Juan to convene that when the time comes. Um, so first of all, let's go through the the
right from the top. Chairman, uh, are there any nominations from the floor for chairman of the board? Chairman, any nomination? Can I say myself? I enjoy the jobs. I like to stay for
another year. Anybody else interested? I'll I'll second that. And And you would accept the position of your life? Any other persons interested? All right. All in favor of Ron being chairman for the 25.
Congratulations. Thank you very much everyone. Uh vice chair. Uh, any persons interested in being the vice chair? I don't Paul Leone. Um, uh, any other persons interested?
All right. With that, we'll enter a motion. Yes. I I u say nominate or vice chair. I make that motion. Is there a second? Second it. All in favor? I
congratulations or condolences. Um the next position is treasurer. Um and I Terry nominate Terry Yman. Is there a second? I
Any other persons interested in being treasur? All those in favor? I opposed. Last but not least is the secretary. Anybody interested in being secretary? I nominate Kathy O'Brien to be secretary. Payback.
I'll second. Is there anybody else interested in being secretary? So the motion's been made. All in favor? Any opposed? Beautiful. Um the last position according to our bylaws is CEO of the Council on Aging. Ron, I'll let
you um convene that. Yes. Um, anybody the job of CEO? Well, that honestly is uh there is a prerequisite in the bylaws. You have to be the senior center director. So, we
only have one. I second that. He has to stay right here. And the place won't run as well either. Oh gosh. Okay. Second. Do we have a second on that? Said I. All in favor? Okay. Any oppose?
Michael, congratulations. Thank you. It's kind of a weird position. I you know, I really don't I don't know what it what it really entails other than to support the um the officers, which could be executive secretary job, or could this be the senior side job, but it's in
the bylaw, so you have to do it. Why do they have that? It's interesting. It is interesting because you have to be the director of the CSN in order to be CEO as an officer. Yeah, it's it's it's
not it's it's very I think it's unique. I don't think that's a a common thing to happen. It's in the bylaws, but here's how I read the bylaw. It's not that I'm a legal expert. Is because you're the senior center director, I think you automatically become the CEO. However,
it's listed as officers and the annual meeting says you have to elect the officer. So, it doesn't preclude the position of the CEO from being an elected office. That's that's what I got to say. I noticed when we were at the bylaws and I thought that was kind of odd because it means I mean you got
hired by the city government. Correct. Right. Well, there two entities. That's I'm going to I'm going to cut you off there. It's really important. I understand there's two entities. The Council on Aging is the board. The senior center is the facility. And the
board operates the facility. But the board can do more than just operating the facility. If you wanted to, you could do, you know, have office hours at holding the shields. You could go to the schools. I mean, there's no limit on what the board thinks that the Council
on Aging should do other than what the board thinks the Council on Aging should do. So, it's really two different uh viewpoints and I often get confused like who am I talking um how am I how am I addressing people today as the director of the senior center is the CEO of the
council. In other words, you're wearing two hats. Yeah, but they're both the same color and they fit the same and they I'm going to tell you just one here. We're never washed myself on TV, but I'm going to watch this one now. Might learn something by myself. Okay, now we're going to be next is
going to be the director's report since Michael's still cardboard. God, that was a close. Four more years. So, uh, I I put two specific things down because I wanted to pay attention to marketing and communications.
And I think I think the character of senior centers have been to be understated and kind of go under the radar. And one of the concerns I had and this board has shared with me over the last few years is by doing that we do a
disservice to the seniors who may not be totally aware of what we do, the services we provide or may have a misconception perception about what we are. And I can't tell you how many people have told me that the senior center is like, you know, um, a convolescent home or it's just, you
know, so low in activity and it's really hard to change that perspective. So, we're really focusing on marketing and communications and some of the things we've done recently. Well, in in the very recent past, we've created some slicks and we're going to I think right
now our plan is to create six of these. We just started this first one. It was our first draft um on Medicare, we're putting it out in all of the doctor's offices, major employers, human resource departments for the city and the pension office. Um so that as they have staff,
people that are nearing retirement or the age of 65 and they're not quite sure how to get them that expertise, assistance they need on signing up for Medicare, they'll know to give them our phone number. Um, and it has really been
received well so far. We really haven't hit a lot of places. Interesting. The last two places that I went and dropped them off. They said, "These are great, but we're going to need about 10 times the number you gave us." And I didn't expect that. Um, so we'll see. We'll see how many of
these we get through and if we need to do a reprint, we'll do a reprint in the near future. We're going to do one on housing, one on our transportation services. And they're generic in nature so that people know that they can call us for the information, but not necessarily be able to effectuate the
transportation services simply because of the brochure. We want that engagement. That's um really the whole idea. We doing the tech boards you've seen. We're doing um you know a little bit more on the the sign boards all across the city thanks to the generosity
DPW and our science and alliance department Doug Monroe who's really helping us you know build out that messaging system. Our our rooc calls and our email blasts have been really great and in fact um we've done just I think a
really good job at hitting our existing population. My real struggle is how do I get the population that doesn't come here on a normal basis? Just to give you a frame of reference, um we had 4,000 over 4,000 unique
individuals come to the senior center aged 15 and over in the last 12 months. That's a great number. That's a really good number. I'm excited about that. But it also tells me that there's a lot of opportunity for more growth. Last thing
I want to just kind of bring your attention to and I saw many of you had it with you when you came in. Um, this month I think is the first time there have been no blanks
unfilled advertisement slots in our newsletter. Um, that's that's that's really good. um because I'm aware we just made three referrals for companies to to LPI to do ads. Um it means that
this product will be sustained at least for you know another year and that people see it as a good source of information and resources. So, um, part and parcel of that, a great part of that is the, uh, information that folks like
you provide me, they put in the newsletter. You give me, you give me great info, great intel. We're able to do some nice articles. Um, when I first did this newsletter, it was eight pages, all black and white, and uh, we had about 50% of the ads. Now, we're 12
pages, full color, and we have 100% ado. I could go to 16 pages. I could do 16 pages now. Our electronic copy, if you get it, is about 38 pages. So, there's a lot of stuff. Granted, a lot of them are the flyers about travel, but still I'll
say thank you to all the people who make the deliveries for us. But, oh, the deliveries, the volunteers, and and that's a great point. Um, we have a we have a cadre of folks that that go out and they have their own kind of distribution points, which is really
neat. Um, for a lot of reasons. First of all, they are um accepting and and investing in our center by doing that. So, they feel like it's important thing for them to do to get this information out. We certainly know it is. The other thing is the way that that it's kind of
evolved is we're able to backfill. Somebody should get sick or hurt or injured, we're talking a half a dozen distribution points as opposed to 65 distribution points. So, that's another really cool thing because of the very very um kind and considerate folks in
our center that do you know these deliveries for us. It's really neat. 2 weeks before they come in, by the middle of the month, we'll get 14 calls from our from our volunteers. Are they in? So, they're excited about doing it.
It obviously makes some sense for them. Uh the other thing we talked about last month, the donated equipment. We got two pool tables from the BFW. We've looked at them. These aren't the best of the best. They're not um cream of crop, but they're good pool tables. They're good, solid pool tables. There's going to be a
cost associated with them. Paul has alluded to the fact that there may be costs with technology. There's a cost to everything. We're going to get two tables, but we're going to have to have them moved. We're going to have to have them recarpeted. Um, so nothing is free in this world. Uh,
all right. I'm going to give you a quick down and dirty. Lifeline is up and running. We have the Lifeline program. No, I'm going to take a little side note. If anybody's noticing, my phone is is blown up here. I get now between 15 and 20 calls a month. Uh, folks trying
to sell me solar advantage plan. Um, now that I'm on Medicare with parts A and B, I'm not. Um, but but to say 20 calls a day, um, I am not exaggerating. And in this
15 minutes, four calls have come in, spam calls. Um, I'm telling you that. Yeah. I'm hoping that folks that who are watching are listening that if somebody's calling you unsolicited to ask you to sign up for something, don't do it. Uh, on May 14th,
we have two great partners coming in and doing a program on protecting our seniors. The partners are the DA's office and GFA Federal Credit Union. And um Lori is the chief compliance officer who is going to, you know, kind of give us some real case scenarios. But I'm
going to share this with you. I'm working with a gentleman now. He I want you to think about how bad this is in a minute cuz when you hear it, you're going to be shocked. But it gets worse. Um he took out $85,000 of his pension and gave it to
scammers. Um, in addition to that $85,000 because he did that, he got a 35% guess penalty from the IRS for early withdrawal. So 86,000 $85,000 is gone
plus he's got another $35,000 he owes the IRS and the Massachusetts Department of Revenue. $130,000 at the end of the day is what he's on the hook for. And what's going to happen? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. The only recourse we have is to not get
put in that position in the first place. Um once the money is gone, it's gone. And this was the typical um gift card scam. So, uh we bought a ton of gift cards. We gave the people the number. They cashed it in and
there's no way to track or trace them. It's gone. That to me is incredible. And you think, "Oh, this guy, oh, he must he must not have been paying attention." I'm telling you, very smart people, very smart people. I have talked to and
discussed alternatives, people who you would be blown away, could get fooled. And they're getting fooled because the scammers are that good. They are unbelievably intelligent. They use a phenomenon called social engineering. They know how to manipulate emotions and
fears and concerns and quite honestly that concern about am I going to have enough money? I want I want to be able to live comfortably. People want to cash in on that. Um if it sounds too good to be true, folks, it is too good to be true. I guarantee that. But if you want
to be sure before you say yes, before you do anything, come in and see us. We'll walk through the process with you here at the Gardener Senior Center. The guarded police department has given us excellent resources. You're not alone in that. Um and and interest and you're not
you're not incapable. You're not unintelligent. You're smart, beautiful, wonderful people who are getting scammed by people who do this for a living. Um so they're going to be better than you. Don't don't let them take you for cash. Stanley, can't they uh go to the uh
attorney general's office or someplace? Oh, they have validate it so that the IRS doesn't suppression. There's there's the milliondoll question and the answer is yes, you can. Um, in fact, this gentleman who has a $35,000 tax lean and
I have been working on doing that. Um, typically that takes a a tax attorney, lawyer, accountant to do that, but you can do that on your own. And really what it is, it's a letter asking the IRS or Department of Revenue to reduce the tax
debt based on, you know, certain circumstances. And certainly being scammed is one of those circumstances they would be, I think, open to hearing. It does not eliminate the entire debt. But if we can negotiate that debt down, if we can move it from 35,000 to 5,000,
that's more palatable and it's easier to pay off than having this dark black cloud hanging over the back of your head for the rest literally for the rest of his life. Cuz there's no way in God's green earth he's going to be able to pay off $35,000. And what's going to end up
happening is they're going to attach a social security. they're going to do a um garnishment on a social security and it may be a tright amount but honestly if you're making, you know, if you're getting $1,000 in social security and they're taking $200 out, it's pretty
hard to live on $800 a month or $1,000 or $1,200, right? So, um we're working with him on that and hope to hear soon whether or not he's willing to go forward with that. But then we have to come up with a with a reasonable amount that both the IRS and power will
accept. Hopefully zero, but it won't be. Um, a while back, this is like 15, 20 years ago, we had that do not call registry and then you would register your phone number. You all remember that? I made
about 17 to 20 phone calls. One window replacements, you know, one IRA accounts, you know, it's like stuff I don't need. The first debt debt consolidation loans, uh, anything
and why, if we had this do not call thing, why are we still getting calls that are unsolicited? There are million reasons for that. Who's going to who's going to investigate and prosecute, right? So that takes resources and I can guarantee at least in the foreseeable
future there aren't going to be federal employees that going to be investigating um scam calls. The second thing is with the proliferation of technology and we're seeing it here as well. 5 years ago when you go to call for me your
caller ID clearly said Gardner Senior Center. It was a number that we own 4067. We now use a voice over internet protocol, VOIPE. And VOIPE assigns a number randomly um from a pool like we have a pool now,
but it assigns that number randomly and there's no caller ID on that number. Uh and then the third thing is people are now able to spoof numbers. So I could make a call to Nancy today for example under Stanco's name and she wouldn't her
caller ID is going to see say see Sanco 978 and then his phone number um which I won't put on air for our folks that are watching today's um but there's the technology has evolved and we haven't caught up to it because it's just not that important and
quite honestly I think if if there's a government agency out there that really wants to do something For most Americans, this is a trillion dollar a year industry. That's a trillion dollars a year that people are stealing. In any
other circumstance, there'd be all kinds of of regulation and compliance issues. I think it's a I think it's a great opportunity for people to springboard for them to to capitalize on, but it's not going to happen anytime soon. So
because it's so hard with international calling centers in India, right? So um remember everything used to be predicated off the two copper lines. It's all on the internet now. So they can operate 400 lines from a call center in in Tallahassee and not be able to be
traced. Well, you can trace them, by the way, but you can trace them. It takes some very sophisticated computer equipment and somebody who's willing to do it. and the government isn't interested in investing that kind of time, energy, and putting because there are people out there that do this for a
living and they kind of do the reverse calls on the scammers and they're very uh effective. Um, all right. So, Lifeline, Lifeline is up and running. We've been trained. We're every day learning some new stuff. Um, we've done our first two installs. Uh our staff has
done about four service calls and our partners in Athal continue to give us amazing support uh in the Athel Orange area. Um going out most of the service calls we get are I want to say benign. They're very easy to handle.
Um things like units not charging just going in and troubleshooting why. often it's because a unit isn't plugged in or it's not attached to the to the um device correctly or there's a battery that needs to be replaced. So, really
easy service calls. We haven't had to replace any units yet. So, that's uh pretty good stuff. Um we hope to ratchet up our marketing on Lifeline by June 1st. So, uh we'll have some lifeline materials. They're providing
them for us. to give us collateral materials and printing them. So, brochures and flyers um with pricing and things like that. So, really kind of excited about it. We're going to give this a shot just so that you all know for about 6 months. We'll re-evaluate at the end of the year and see whether or not this is something we can and are
willing to continue to do, but at least it keeps it open for a little while longer. The shredding event emergingly scheduled for July 12th is now August 8th, I think is what the date is. August 8th. August 2nd. August 2nd. Saturday 9 to 12 here at the Garden Senior Center.
We're always looking for volunteers. We will be doing not only the paper recycling but the electronic recycling again this year. So folks need to and want to take care of that allin-one swell of food. Is there a special price or we have a price list? Yes, there is a price list. The price
list is available here. Um it's also distributed as part of our newsletter. Most people don't read it day of know that there are some items that are free. There are some some items that we get charged for and we just pass that cost along to the um seniors. So if it's, you
know, $15, it's $15 for you. It's $15 for me. It's really easy. August 8th. August 2nd. Second. Um don't forget the May 14th program. That's really important. Uh the sheriff's picnic is scheduled for June
7th in Shrewsbury. I hope you folks can join us and attend that. The Woos game is August 8th. We have a ton of people already signed up for that. Battleship Cove on June 11th. This is our third year trying to do this trip and we have just not been able to get a lot of
people. And by a lot of people, I want to kill the bus. That bus is going to cost us an arm and a leg. Um it'll be much a much less part of our arm and leg if we get enough people to come. So, we're hoping if you're interested, folks, if you hear about this trip
coming up on June 11th, the Battle Strip Cove, we're going to USS Constitution on September 12th. That is absolutely locked in. We've added a whole bunch of music programs. We do a ukulele class. We do an open strum ukulele. We have Cinjun drums now. Um,
which are the instructors been remarkably engaged. Um, so exciting. I think we had 14 people. Uh, we had 14 people plus two. We made 16 people attend the drum class which is really kind of exciting. Um we're working on
for those of you who don't know uh register of deeds Kate Tumi will be in the office next Friday. I better check that. No, end of the month. I'm sorry. May 30th. So she's coming um to do a program office hours
here. So just meet with people, answer their questions. you come down to bread and pastry and do an appearance uh then as well. We're working on getting Secretary Galvin to the senior center as a speaker. In fact, Kate Tun is helping us coordinate that and get that uh in for us. And we're working hard. 5 years
ago, if any of you have institutional memory and knowledge, I said, I'd really like to get a meteorologist to come to the garden center, right? Um and I've had no luck. I've reached out to the general mailbox of every major um
syndicated news program in New England and they just don't know. But I have now a hook with Harvard Leonard. So we're hoping that Mr. Leonard feels um the draw, right, the attraction of
gardener and can come and sit on the chair on a nice bright sunny day when he comes uh to speak. But we're still working on that. Um if any of you have any great connections, we've enlisted the help of some of our elected officials to maybe um see if they can
get some results or interest uh to come for a meeting on this. Well, we can Mr. Le could talk to us about how come our weather so much different than Boston, North Central Bass, the hilly here, or the county have explain all that to us, which would be a great idea. I think the hilly gives it away. I don't know. I'm
no meteorologist. I can tell you that. Um, yeah, that's that's just a lot of really cool exciting things. The derby part is coming up in June. We have the tea party. Um, and it if it sounds like maybe opening, we'll get 60 people
signed up for the derby. I think we have almost 60 people signed up for the tea party already. Uh, which will include Jerry Kuso, a comedian who's going to do a a short um uh stand up for us. Steve Landry, who is a potter at Studio 4 Potters, is going to come in and do a
demonstration of how he makes a teacup or tea mug. Um, yeah, kind of neat. And then for our fall tea party, we have uh the Boston Tea Party Museum. One of their curators, interpreters, is going
to come and do a program on this, the 250th anniversary on uh the Boston Tea Party. So, that'll be kind of cool. neat stuff. And if you have an idea, let us know. We always want to do something new and exciting. So that's it. Anybody
have any questions, thoughts, comments? I have just one don't mean to embarrass her, but our Julie is going to be Well, she won't be there, but she's going to be honored as the gardener citizen of the year this Thursday night.
So this is Julie this Thursday night, citizen of the year. So very well. Um, and and actually Terry, you caught me off guard because I thought it was this Thursday night. It is Thursday. Yeah. Yeah. It's this Thursday. I was
thinking it was next. It's this Thursday. This Thursday. Are you excited to be there? No, she's not going to be there. I'm so humbled and so thankful. It's so unexpected. It's great. I mean,
it's great stuff. Um, she's going to be at another great event. She's going to be to see her husband graduate out in Colorado. Nice. So, she's got two. You'll be on your own Rocky Mountain
graduation and citizen. I am so happy for you and so um overwhelmed at the at the great um recognition that the folks are given in this community. Yeah. Good job. That's for all you
do. Red I'm sorry. We had to say that. Okay, that's all I have. That was our item for open discussion, but that's okay. Oh, I thought we were on open discussion.
Any other comments? Open discussion. Open discussion. I do. Um, it's crazy to see the news this morning, the local news about one of the towns outside of Boston has this resident who's 101 and he used to run the Boston
Marathon. then started doing 12K and then 5K as the years went by and every year now for the last five or six years they do he does the he runs the one mile and the whole town comes out
bar and I thought yeah I thought it was really cool and they they asked it was funny because they asked him they said well I forget the man's name goes why you still do this because I can't you you know, and and it made me
just think it made me think for a second about um the town rallying behind this guy who's sort of everybody kind of knows him. Um you know, it makes it makes sense visible in the community. I started thinking along that lines about,
you know, things we could do which you had mentioned earlier about um how can we get our image out there in marketing and a stupid little thing about a guy running a mile is bringing the whole town out and they were all cheering him
on. It's like that's what it's about. It's about community and it's How cool is that? Yeah. You know who saw the thing this morning? My son. You saw it? Yeah. Was it? Oh, it was awesome. It was It was just amazing. Made you brought
you to tears after watching where all the people came off and it was just like, "Wow, we should have seen your walk." Was a time in our history that we gave the oldest person in the city a walking stick and each year that walking
stick was passed on to the next person who um you know achieved that. recognition. The walking stick has long since disappeared um in somebody's attic or backbone or maybe thrown away because people didn't
recognize its importance. I love those kinds of things and that is certainly something we should think about doing like recognizing folks in our community that have um you know lived uh a lifetime that we just hope to live or do
those kind of special recognitions. said, "I'm so pleased and proud of this senior center for the centennial. We had the AERP car. We had the Golden Age car. We had the senior center car. We had line dancers." And in that parade, and for just a brief moment, people saw and
knew that there were things going on um with our seniors in the community that are that are that are productive, that are progressive, that matter. Um they provide connection. Uh so, you know, I like it. We should be looking at things like that. What opportunities exist in
the community that we could ride on the coattails? I think programs like seniors are going to um visit children in hospitals or you know there's just more interaction with the rest of the community that we live with. And it only
spells it only sells the community who we are and what we're capable of which is very important because a lot of us after a certain age we say I can't do that anymore. I can't do that anymore. You start to lose hope about your body's
betraying you or whatever. But we're not we're not dead yet. Just to comment on the running, our my daughters ran um big run. My father used to run uh Boston Marathon in Chie's surplus uh race in
Worcester. My daughters ran 5K, 3K, 1K. Um the only thing that I closely assimilated with is I eat special K. That's the only Something just came to my mind. We were talking about the chain. I was just
thinking, could we have the wood carvers downstairs? Just we don't have one anymore. I'm just thinking that there we certainly could. Maybe Ericson to do a nice uh tip or base on it. We lost the old one, put it
up, not the new one. It's a new tradition. Would be nice because Then I have they added a new class for me that you know you know that in July. July. No
way. I'm not going anywhere. Um no I'm going to have another basket class in June because there was so much call for made. I came to limit it to eight students so it's manageable. So there was an override people that wanted to get on it. So he's had good attention
class, but I'm going to do a lot more in the fall. For people who are listening to this, Paul Leon is talking about a coiled basket class that he teaches to beginners and advanced um crafters. And it came, you know, kind of on a whim.
We're asking folks if there's a particular skill or expertise you have, would you care to share it? And Paul said, let's give this a try. And it's been unbelievably wellreceived. Right. So, I would say this to folks here at the table or folks that are watching. If there's something you like to do,
there's probably a very good chance there's somebody in the community that wants to try it or wants to do it. The ukulele group just absolutely blew up. Um the drum class, in a million years, I didn't think we'd have 16 drummers in that class. Um even here at the senior
center, we now exhibit uh folks uh visual uh art. So, we have Paul's baskets on display. We have some prints by one of our seniors. This gentleman behind me, he does paintings and he's got 120 of these of unbelievable oil
paintings of wildlife in this corner. Brand new. This gentleman does pencil drawings. They're exceptional pencil drawings. But one really cool thing about all of these folks is their story. Like how did they get into this and why did they get into it?
And the gentleman who does the pencil drawings behind me talks about his own journey with mental health and how the pencil drawings helped to bring him to a place of you know calm and you know without all of these these voices or
things going on in his head that that sometimes are so pervasive in our lives. I would love for folks when they come to the center to take a minute and look at the different um exhibits. And if you are somebody who likes to draw or paint or have something that you'd like to
display, lend it to us. You don't have to give it to us. We don't have to keep it. Uh but we would be proud to have your items here displayed for our center uh participants to see. So, think about that. And certainly when we get to our
new location, we're going to have a heck of a lot more wall space. So, we're looking for opportunities to do that. The VFW is going to uh is working on doing a a display for us from their old location. So, we'll be able to have a nice display honoring our veterans in
the community and keep that legacy alive of the BFW. Those are just kind of unique ways that you can get involved. I'm talking to you. If you're watching right now and you do something like that, give us a call. We want to put it up here at the Garden Seed Center. No, you're right about, you know, you have something that interests you. You're
right. or there are people out there that would like to know more about it or take part of it. What I found from teaching my class is it's not so much what we're making. It's the time of spending together the the exchange between plus the fact that I can't go
into an or job without bumping into somebody who's showing me they're running eight baskets already. You got to see them and all of a sudden their phone comes out and they're showing me all their photographs and I I you know I'm like wow you know. So it's it's just
been very very positive um experience for both teacher and students. So if you do know anything okay anything else on open discussion? All right can I have a motion to adjurnn? I'll make a motion to adjurnn.
Second. Okay. All in favor? I oppose not voting. Thank you everyone next month on June 2nd. Blue sector 2:00 in the