##VIDEO ID:ZmTnwP5t774## e e e e e e e good morning everybody Welcome to the Kingston Council and aging Advisory board meeting today is Tuesday December 10th and we'll go ahead and get started with the Pledge of Allegiance don't get I can do it of the United States of America and to the rep for one na under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all I know it's been a couple of months that we've um since we've been here actually I'll go ahead and start with a few announcements first sorry um this meeting is being recorded by the local scene anyone intending to make an audio or video recording of this meeting should notify the chair at this time um there are several volunteer opportunities at the Council on Aging including but not limited to emails on Wheels uh volunteer help at the cafe need volunteers needed with computer skills senior tax wrof volunteers um and so on so if you have any interest in any of these opportunities please reach out to um to Holly as the interm Director of the CLA and as a reminder I always do that the email address to reach us is COA hyen a at King ma.gov all right we'll move on to we have several um meeting minutes to review um we can do that afterwards it's fine I'll do a um I think that I will sent these to you I know I didn't send them to you just the other day but I thought that I have previously sent them to you so correct me if I'm wrong and if you guys aren't ready to H them let me know but we have our September 10th meeting which we originally had copies of for our our October meeting um and we were going to bump it we decided to bump it um we have the September 27th special meeting minutes which were brief um and then we have the October 8th meeting minutes um which we would have reviewed in November but we canel the November meeting does anyone have any question questions do you need more time to review these okay we could do these as a lump sum if everyone is willing um I just need a motion to approve I'll make a motion to accept September 10th and September 27th and October oops wait minut eight perfect and I second it thank you Mary okay all in favor by thank you I will Circle back and ask if anyone is here for open Forum anyone anyone okay now we'll go ahead move on thank you for that um couple of things I want to we did this last year too um I was invited last month if I don't remember the date um hold I might remember the date but um invited to the uh senior safety presentation given by the Plymouth County District Attorney's office um there are extra folders here if any of you are interested but um similar to years in the past it was incredibly informative um there's all kinds of really great not only information but resources given out at that meeting and um one of the things that I personally love is this life of file so or the other way around file of life um that's what it is um which if you guys if none of you do you all have it does everyone use one of these I need a new one you need a new one well actually let me use it for explanation first and then I'll hand it to you sorry shouldn't have been shouldn't have been so quick to toss it to you right on your fridge exactly so for anyone that's watching us um It's a Wonderful medical card that you can put post on your refrigerator that the back of this is magnet is magnetized so you can stick this right in there and then if there's anything else important that medical professionals need to know about you they can also be tucked right in here when they come in they'll come right to your home right to your refrigerator they'll look for this first um so I use this for my mother um and I'm actually considering using it for myself because why the heck not why the heck not I mean this doesn't have to be just a senior thing medications for well right you know you've got anything allergic to something yeah also in here is some uh handy phone numbers for you guys to have um as far as resources you know of course emergency 911 but how to reach the District Attorney's Office how to reach the elder abuse hotline how to reach um old calling Elder services so on and so forth there's all kinds of great phone numbers on here too which are inside this packet and really good to keep handy and then there's a portable version so the exact same information in a little Port portable file to tuck into your um your wallet or your purse or wherever your medic your portable medications wherever you keep your safety information so that's always my biggest takeaway when I go to this is um is getting these and this is a sticker that you can put on your window as they're entering your house to actually tell them hey this exists go find this um so that's what all this is about there you go my friend thank you you're welcome and then um other information that's in here just different brochures about um Triad how to get rid of your excess drug or prescription drug information I've actually used this myself and it could not have been more simple I mean I I didn't do anything special to it you don't have to um depersonalize the bottles if you you can if you want to but you don't have to the whole thing is completely secure and they get in generated so it's not like somebody's opening them up and going oh what what is ktie star donating um so dropping off your drugs at the police station is actually a really good easy thing to do um do not call registry list reminders are in here how to protect yourself from identity theft um all kinds of different things so if you will have these extra files are here so if anyone wants them at the table please take them but we'll make sure that they're at the front desk as well um for anyone that wants them there okay can I add something please at one of these meetings that I went to in the past they did mention about the meditation and people don't realize it and they'll throw it in the toilet if you have thank you for saying that you have a septic system it can wreck your sep it'll it'll kill all the bacteria in there and so it's very important and know that they mentioned that you that's actually I'm really glad that you mentioned that um because that is very important that's EAS for the exact reason we all have septic systems in this area almost every single one of us does right um and everybody watching it most likely has a septic system too so please don't flush a medication for that exact reason it's going to kill off the good biomes and the good things organisms in your in your system so that's why they have that program so perfect thank you um Kathy you wanted to share a personal experience about r chair I do I really do as you all know I have all I have a room registered in my name in sou show Hospital oh no been there forever she has her own Suite I have my own Suite yeah I have many points now um because I've been unable to drive and had to go to a congestive hot filia Clinic I have been able to use a program that uh I'm with an integrated Care Management specialist uh the hospital set that up to keep me out of the hospital for what's going on um and anyway they introduced me to the Uber lift grant program and it's through Old Colony Elder services and what it is you are entitled to two roundtrip rides a month to your hospital or your doctors in Waymouth or Boston whatever they will go that distance and they're free but what you have to do is first of all sign up with the Uber program at OES um it will take you for x-rays it will take you for MRIs whatever you must call four days in advance you need to have your appointment scheduled after 900 a.m. and finished before 4 p.m. um you need to be able to use a cell phone to receive messages because what the program does is let you know who's going to pick you up at what time um I had I just experienced it again yesterday got a an email message that said said AA will pick you up in 10 minutes he is driving a Camry gives you the color of the car and the license plate number this is at my home you have to be able to walk to the car yourself get in the car by yourself they don't assist he was there right on time off we went to wayth I went to my appointments when I was done I had already scheduled the time for pickup because they would like you to schedule a you know a time so they can have a driver ready um when my appointment was done I was sitting downstairs waiting and I got a message your driver will be there in 7 minutes his name is he will be driving a discolored car you don't have the same driver that brings you they do not wait for you if you get out there and you can't get to them within five minutes they will leave but they will be a number for you to call and let them know that you get tied up at the office or whatever and they'll send somebody out somebody else out and that happened to me the first time that I went um I got down there because my driver was supposed to be there in 10 minutes but then at the last minute I got a notification that he was unable to make it but they would send me a driver in four minutes four minutes later there was somebody there so I have to say that they're very precise very on time it's easy you don't need to go into the app they text you so it's not a problem I have um I'll show anybody afterwards I have a sample of what I went through yesterday and um again they'll go to the hospitals in Bost wayth wherever so I think it's a great program it's free as long as the grant is in place great I used it it works exactly the way she says absolutely yeah it's perfect and a lot of people don't know about it it's just one of those things and I heard about it through the integrated case management program I'm actually in a program at South sure it's called hospital at home um I probably if I have major issue they will come to me for IVs and what have you so I don't have to go to Southshore and if you do you have to chip do you chip the driver oh yes it is not necessary and I had asked the driver himself he said no no your insurance is covering these rides you don't have to tip us and they don't pressure you I had a young man yesterday bringing me home and he drives for this particular program because he's going for his Master's in um in cyber security so it helps him and I tipped him and he was really grateful he offered it back to me I said no the cars are new they're clean the drivers are neat and clean they drive very cautiously on the highway when you're all done you get a a um a request to fill out a form you know to rate them Y and it's only four questions they want to know was the driver clean was the driver on time was the driver a decent driver that was it it's a it's a wonderful program it sounds very similar to um obviously they must be partnering I'm guessing with Uber themselves and with Lyft yeah must be Partnerships so when they're not driving for this program they're probably driving in general you know for the greater population yep like the fellow that took me um yesterday is was a retired police officer from Plymouth he was dropping me off but he was going on to take some woman to a shopping trip she was going to do a Christmas shopping through live and so at first I thought you said and correct me if I'm wrong I at first I thought you said you were entitled to two free round trip trips oh a month okay that's that's um two free trips a month and then if you exceed that how does that work have you have you exceeded that and have you had to pay privately I have not exceeded that and I don't know if it you know I don't know that answer so they could reach anybody could reach out to Old Colony Elder Services ask that's where you would go first of all they will do your intake for you and they they're the ones that sponsor the program great but I heard again because nobody really knows about it I'm glad you had experience with it um I heard through the integrated case management so I'm being watched like believe me we all are I can't do yeah no I'm glad that it's there runs out yeah and this say above and beyond I would imagine above and beyond typical Katra Services those are still out there butra will only take you local local right you know they're not going to take you to Boston they can't sure um but this is something for to get out of the area how many times you have to go to Boston or for an MRI or Fox bro for you know so I think it's great I thought G was gonna go whoops I don't think they I think they working on it working on it yeah they're working it but they don't right now yeah I gu like I don't like I don't like anything else like getting in guys with strange I don't either but you know what when it comes down push to shove and you have nobody to take you and you have to go at least it's available you've got a nice service and and it's a secure so it's secure in that they're trying to protect your safety by telling you who's coming and not you know if a red car shows up and not the black one you're expecting don't get in the red one usually the guys exactly and that's how Uber works that's how in general Uber Works know when they say your name when yeah hi Kathleen welcome yeah yeah that's the first thing that comes out of their mouth Y is they know you must be Kathleen it's like good morning Kathleen welcome no that's great and they the color of the car the um license plate um his name and his phone number yeah so if you run into a problem you can reach out directly directly F that's wonderful thank you for sharing the experience oh it was good great and if anyone has any other questions please reach out to Old Colony Elder servic say about that um oh that's Joanne oh okay great Hi how are you Joanne hi um are you ready would you like to um I'm in no rush so at your convenience whenever you guys want to take it up well you know what maybe I will give you just a couple of extra minutes just to get situated um if I can we've got our friends representative today um this was going to be down I have this under um other business but I'm going to pull pull it up forward and ask that Chris give us a quick little update about what's happening with the friends group thank you very much over slide on over slide it on over slide slide over since I haven't seen most of you for quite some time let me just highlight the last six months it's been a long six months and we've been extremely busy we started off in June with our ual lunch where we selected our most of our uh officers offices thank you very it's the demen is sitting in I say and um it was a success we fed about 110 people that day and they had so much fun at the hilltop that I they had a request please let's do this again so we said okay and make sure we have the ice cream truck okay so we had probably over the course of the summer we had another three or four times that we met and we Serv as probably almost 200 people and the meals were great we got them from Mama M we got them from KFC we got them from mck basket and we've all learned how to be great service but anyway so that was good and uh they all enjoyed it when it came time to plan the Thanksgiving and Christmas the hilltop is nice but it's it's not friendly for an activity like that so we went over to the uh NS of Columbus they're excellent over excuse me they're excellent over there the hall was beautiful it's just been renovated lovely tables nice kitchen just a perfect place so we planned our Thanksgiving and we had 120 people for Thanksgiving and we had the firefighters there to um serve and all the meals got out and they were all hot I I couldn't sleep and night were worrying about serving cold food but those firefighters I'm telling you everything was out and handsome too I was a nice added bonus nice added bonus and for Christmas we have the same thing we have the KFC scheduled we have 120 people we have the police offices coming to serf and we have Mr and Mrs Claw is coming and we have Bill alery coming to sing so it should be a festive time and as far as the business goes uh Holly and I have met a few times and um the the friends uh paid for Matt Young York York he was excellent by the way he was really good and um that was pretty much full and also we talked about um we're still subsidizing the materials for the any of the craft stuff so we continue to do that and uh she tells me she's decorating cookies this time I said I thought you did plants she I guess she's going to do cookies so that's fun she's also doing um table placement for us for centa she's doing po sets we couldn't get the real coets this year so she's doing the paper ones for us Christmas be nice and then also um we're helping out with the um mailing mailing we gave um allia check for her permit and we put $1,000 into her account above M and that's enough that's where we've been we've been real busy that's a great update thank you very much does anyone have any questions for kiss all right then thank you appreciate that thank you all right so the next thing on our agenda um not to keep Joanne uh waiting any longer is um as we know we've gotten the approval to move ahead with the U the programming for the um old coling old colony planning Council thank you um for their version of the age and dementia study and Joan is here to hopefully share with us um what the heck do we do next what's the next steps then um um what can we expect Joanne thank you for joining us thank you all for having me and I'm gonna apologize in advance my dog is being really obnoxious I hope it doesn't interfere with what I'm saying so if you can't hear me just raise your hand and I'll try and deal with him um so the next step for the agef friendly process in Kingston is to um get a contract in place for ocpc to be able to provide the services that's just a a quick technicality admin thing but I do need to know from you guys what you want to do with regard to the committee and the public survey so the choice that you need to make is do you want the town to set up an age and dementia friendly task force or committee as its own board commission whatever you decide to call it at the Town level that would mean that a um resolve would be passed by the select board I can provide you examples from other communities we've worked with that would establish this group um who's in it how long they serve for that kind of thing its purpose and then the committee would have to be populated with whatever the resolve says so in the case of Easton we had a select board member the COA director and then I think they had like five at large community members on it um so you guys can can do that in multiple different ways so I'll send you the East and the duxberry ones and you'll see what those look like um the advantage of having a separate Town committee like that is that it's there pretty much forever um which helps with the longevity of the action planning for the agef friendly and dementi friendly process and it also separates it from the Council on Aging and gives it a little bit more weight to work with Department and other departments essentially like the planning department DPW all those kinds of folks the disadvantage is that the process is a little bit longer right so you have to go through the select board you then have to appoint the people Etc the alternative is to either um have you all here um be that group essentially and take up the planning process as the COA board the disadvantage with that is that you guys have a ton of other stuff that you guys have to do and talk about at your meetings so adding this process on top of that is kind of a huge commitment and it's for most communities too much you could also decide to establish like a subcommittee or a working group under your guidance so you could have you know eight people however many you think is suitable come together for a working group you guys invite these people to participate um and then they report directly to you on the planning process so I would meet with that subgroup um at least once a month in some cases twice a month depending on what point we are in the process um and then at your monthly meetings you could ask them to just give you a brief like five minute update about what's been going on so the advantage with that process is that you know it takes the work off of the board itself and puts it into a a working group under you um and it's a lot quicker to set up um and you kind of avoid the whole select board process um but the disadvantage is that it's not um written into law if you will in town um it's just something that you guys are doing as part of your work so if your board changes in the future they might decide to dissolve that group and it might no longer exist so that's really the first decision that you need to make um there's no right answer communities have done it Every Which Way and other ways as well too um so it's really a community decision for you guys and then once you decide which format you'd like to set up um that will then help me plan out a timeline for the project and we'll talk about the first step which will be the public survey so I don't know if that's a a conversation you want to have today and try and kind of talk it out and I can kind of provide some ins and outs on all the options I would like to actually have a little bit of conversation about that so thank you for that um and and In fairness as much as I support this and have always supported this I was in the back of my mind a little bit concerned about the weight of the project the emotional or the um just the weight of the project falling on us and was worried about that um so I would like to hear from you guys on pros and cons and you know given the choices that Joanne just gave us um where do you guys fall with with your thoughts on how you'd like to see this move forward you know so as I heard we have kind of three main levels or three main choices um it can be taken to the town level you know so when we were presenting this you know previously um and when we were asking for support with the funding to the board of Selectmen uh we were presenting it to them as a town initiative we really wanted it to be a town initiative because not everything is simply going to be um just the COA benefiting from it you know there was you know it's going to be a much bigger project um I see that first option as having the task force or or committee or whatever you want to call it at that town level reinforcing that uh desire to have um the town really help step in and I love the fact that you know we could get planning board people you know we can get the different I'm sure that Joan would help us determine how big the committee should be and and and all of those things and what are the right people and through the the resources that she'll give us with the other towns that have done it this way we'll get some guidance but um I do think that option at least does help reinforce what we've been trying to say to the board of selectman all along is this is really a town initiative um our board level is option two I personally feel is the most um cumbersome for us um I'll just leave it there I think our our own personal timing and um just taking on that burden that extra burden alone I think is going to be particularly cumbersome for us and then a subcommittee that reports to us I guess I kind of feel like almost the same I feel like it's just a different variation of that same cumbersome feeling to me um but please I'd like to hear from everybody else as far as how you guys feel about I agree with you on the board I mean the town town instead of a too much on the problem communication sure so okay okay great similar feelings so is there anybody in the room that doesn't or you know would prefer to have more control of this individual control you know with our board okay um I think that it's absolutely well and I think that there there would be people it may not even be me you know I'm involved in other things but um we could decide moving forward I think today what we could do is take a vote that this is how we would like this to proceed um and then you know Joanne can help us um figure out how we're going to you know approach the town and and um who gets gets on the subcommittee how do how does that all happen but if if the choice is that we want this to be at the Town level with their support I think it's appropriate for us to take a take a vote on that today okay what I'll make a motion for that so the motion will be to um support a taxk task force or committee at the Town level to get the um agent demention survey started okay what anyone likes to second that second oh boy who we given that to Moren okay all in favor I all right great thank you um all right so that was our decision as you heard so we definitely want Town support we're definitely open to any advice Direction guidance you can give us to get the town other members of the Town involved and who would be the appropriate people to be reaching out to you to ask them to to participate great so what I'll do is I will um send Holly to share with you all um the resolves that were passed in Easton and Duxbury and a link to their web pages where you can see who their members are in that email I'll also make some recommendations for who to think about when you're trying to populate this committee so off the bat I would recommend that your COA director is on the committee as well as your planning director um and you definitely want the committee itself and I'll provide a list for this to be representative of the community so ideally you have you know not just everybody 60 plus on the committee but you have you know somebody who might be in their 40s as well because we're all aging every day right so it's important to have those different perspectives um similarly I haven't looked through your um your town website but if you have like a disability commission then we'd probably want a representative from that on this group um so I'll take a look at your boards and commissions and talk to a couple of my colleagues have worked with Kingston as well on different projects and I'll send you guys an email um with those examples of the resolves the community web pages and some ideas for who to think about for this I'll also I know both your Town Administrator and your planner through previous uh projects so I'll reach out to both of them as well too and just get their initial thoughts on doing this as a town process if that's okay with you all if you don't mind me reaching those to them kind of on your behalf okay we would love every any assistance we can get Okay cool so I'll do that as well too um any does that sound okay to everybody any questions it does question the time frame on this for the search committee to form to formulate search or the so um I'll talk to the Town Administrator and your planner to see to get a feel from them about what the select boards kind of load if you will is like over the next few months for meetings um it's usually very quick and easy have you guys had any interaction with your select board members do you know if any of them are supportive of this project as far as I know um I think all of them were um questions about it throughout the process but I now that it is has been approved and we've gotten the granting the money for it um I think their support was always there it was just a question of where the money was going to come from Okay cool so if that's the case and there's no opposition to it it should be very simple we'll get it on their agenda you guys will present your recommendation for a resolve to them they can you know make changes to it or whatever if they want to and then they just vote to accept it and then the to manager unless he decides to delegate will need to populate that committee um so usually the folks that are involved in the formation of the committee have in mind already and have already been talking to people who might want to join so I would suggest that you know you all think about you know if there's any of you all that would want to participate think about that um if there are others in the community um friends or folks that you've been involved with through you know Community groups or other projects that might want to participate that would be great the kinds of people that we're usually looking for are um folks who have or have professional experience with so either personal or professional experience with um some of the health care issues um disability related type issues related to aging um folks who may be um I don't know if there's like a retirement uh Community sometimes we've seen um the activities coordinator or something from that join an age friendly committee um anybody really who has a connection to something related to you know something related to the project that we're trying to undertake here but it's really a very broad net um because like I said everybody's aging and also so many younger people have caregiving responsibilities for older people and of course there are older people that have caregiving responsibilities in some cases is for grandchildren things still so it really is a wide net to cast but I would start thinking about who you might be able to like pre-recruit so that those folks might be ready um to put their name forward to the select board when the resolve is actually accepted um so I'll do that um and then how how large are the task force in general or how long how large have they been in duckberry and Eon so um I think they averaged i' have to take a look at the numbers I think they average between eight and 12 okay um I would kind of shoot for I always like to shoot for an odd number um and I like kind of a little bit larger on the larger end because that way you know if people miss a meeting there's all folks that can't make every single meeting that's helpful so I probably shoot to like I think 10 or 12 would be a good goal to have um but if we land with eight you know that's okay too but somewhere in that range thank you and then once we get that committee populated that will kind of determine when we can actually start the planning process obviously um typically the project will run a year from the first meeting with the official committee through to the very end um we might be able to condense that a little bit depending on which areas of focus we decide to pick for the project the other thing that is an opportunity uh or sorry an option actually let me ask um do you know the details of the grant funding and whether there's a certain date by which it needs to be spent there's no date there's definitely no date there's no deadline by which they want like a deliverable or anything like that perfect okay I don't know those details either yeah get yeah I think what I might what I might ask is that the town just send me that contract that they made with the state just so that I can confirm that and have that on record as well too um you know for for all of us um if that's the case and there's no deadline then we can run it over a full year if there is a deadline we'll have to work to make it you know work within the funding but either way it's not going to be a problem the one thing that we can do as well to kind of get things rolling faster um and this is up to you guys is we could do the public survey prior to the formation of your official committee we did do that in ducky um the survey itself was done essentially under the council and aging board and then while the survey was running live in the community that board worked to establish the formal committee and then once the survey closed the formal committee took those results and then we did the planning process process from there um the survey usually runs over a period of two months or so so it does and that is the first step in the planning process so if we if we were able to do that under you all then that would really help move the project along much more quickly as well too and what that involves is basically I draft I use a template that AARP has developed for these sorts of projects and I customized that template to the needs of the community that we're working with so in this case obviously to Kingston and then I would present the draft of that survey to you all or your formal committee if you decide to wait till then um to review and essentially approve am I asking the right questions did I get anything wrong that kind of thing and then I would rely on you guys or on the formal committee to promote that survey in your community so if there are any events that are happening hand out some flyers talk to your friends and neighbors and you know colleagues on other boards and committees help spread the word and we hope to try and get at least 300 Community responses um but I Rely again on whatever committee I'm working with to actually do that promotion um so it does entail a little bit of work um quite a bit of work outside of the Border committee um and that like I said we'll usually run it for about sort of six to eight weeks depending on how quickly we get responses in so that's another decision for you all to make do you want to do the survey under your over uh oversight and start that in the New Year basically or do we want to wait for the formal committee to be set up and start the survey with them um the advantage so that I'll just give you a little bit of pro and con the the main advantage to doing it under you guys is that we get it done quicker and it moves the project forward quicker um main disadvantage though is that when you do set up your formal committee those folks will be spending the next year working on the the plan in a lot of detail they won't have had the opportunity to feed into the development of the survey so it's in some cases could be a missed opportunity because they might have really good insight about what questions to ask or what might have been missed but neither but like I said it's been done both ways and both ways have been successful it's just really a decision for you guys and a and a preference sure sure any discussion points about that I'm going to hold you just for one second you had something you the survey that's what I was talking about when can we do a survey okay I think we should do the survey you know an idea excuse me but we wouldn't be sending it out we would be formulating it and then it would still if I understand you correctly Joan we would if if we Cho as a board chose chose to um do the survey first we'd be formulating the survey but it would still go out under the task force or it would then just go out to the general population regardless of the of the task force no so let me let me explain the process one more time just to make sure we're on the same page so I would draft the survey at one of your meetings we would talk about the survey and make any changes to it based on your feedback and then I would put the Survey Monkey I would make sorry I would make the survey available online through a Survey Monkey platform it's called Survey Monkey so that people will be able to take it online so i' give you a link and a QR code and I'd also give you a a a digital copy of a flyer um and between the link and the flyer it would be your responsibility as a board outside of your meetings to promote that survey in your community immediately so we could probably like let's say we used a January meeting to um approve the survey talk about it and then approve it then we could get it live by the end of January and then what you would need to do over the next sort of February and March would be to just help spread the word using those flyers and that online Link and I'll provide hard copies as well for you guys to print so you can include those in town hall the library any kind of places where somebody might stop and take a survey on paper as well um and then that's it and then we give it a deadline usually like I said six to eight weeks and then I would take all of that and start analyzing all that information and data and then at the first meeting of your formal committee I would present the results and we'd start the planning process with them from there okay um the alternative to that if we chose not to approve the Sur you know if if we wanted this to be done at the committee level at the Town committee level um you would still prepare the survey it would go to the town committee um level first for approval and questions and fine-tuning of that of that survey then follow the other steps but we would have the benefit I'm assuming we would then have the benefit of the town also additionally promoting it and all of the different members of the task force promoting it through their departments so on and so forth um we have to hit the community right so you know I I guess my initial thought um is personally I would still like to lean on the task force you know the town task force for that assistance because I feel um like we would to to Joan's point you know if the task force has to pick up and run with something that may have some unforeseen holes in it you know you know if there's if we have somebody from the planning board on the committee and it it doesn't have a planning board's eye in the survey and the in the results um that could be you know that could be some holes in in it so while it may take us a little bit longer an extra month or two January February and March are not our strong months as far as um you know with weather and and other things being challenging for us anyway I think that um if those had were behind the scenes the months that things were being planned and we were asking the T you know the town for task force assistance um and to start that if we didn't hit the ground running until April I guess I'm not personally I'm not sure if that would be um huge deficit Holly what do you think hully what are your thoughts on this yeah I think the benefit to doing it under the Advisory Board is time you get it as Jo saying it can be out in the community by the end of January um but I agree that there's you know some missed opportunities with input from a larger task force that representing the entire town that they may have um priorities that we might not see um ideas well and I would think too you know our system and correct me if I'm wrong but you know we send you send out mailers and flyers and you know we have a target audience of our own but it doesn't include some of these other Target people or or or um age groups or it doesn't include some of these other targets that we're trying we may we're trying to reach so I feel like any assistance we could get from the town would be helpful I went to the duck spring meetings and I know that they sent out over 2500 um surveys surveys and they got back, 1400 wow that's a great that's amazing um I would but it did get put out all over the place from what I understand that it went to um the library it went to you know for people to do like she said the paper surveys they did get a400 person response okay anybody else have any comments have a question joen um to avoid confusion for all would you be able to send us all an email simplifying these Steps From A through Z that we what we have to do I mean in our head where we got all this right now but can you as simple as possible give us the steps to take absolutely that's going to be in your contract as well yeah so I'll I'll pull that scope um out and I'll share that with Holly and she can share it with you all for sure um and I just want to add to I think to to um to the chair's point the later winter months are tough because for community outreach because there aren't a lot of public events happening it may be important to consider you know what's happening in town for outreach when you make your decision usually April May those are months where you know farmers markets maybe are starting to get going or people are having kind of more activities in town um maybe there's you know maybe you guys are active in the winter as well too in sort of February and March um I'm not familiar enough yet with your community um but that's definitely something to consider as well too if Outreach is better done in the spring because you have more going on in town then that's definitely a good reason as well to wait till then okay great so one other thing is our board meetings will be held in a different locations due to tax SE from like February through April so we're all going to be just combobulated and yeah you know yeah so I I mean I definitely appreciate we you know we've been pushing for such a long per it feels like this has been going on for two years already um in theory right trying to get to this point and and you know we're right we're right there but I feel like my personal opinion is um taking our time and help and getting some support from the town through a t a town task force um is would be the better way to go even though it may take us a couple extra months to there right and get a and get a lot of different U perspectives exactly we have meetings in April and that would be you're a nice time to get survey surve yeah yeah if we get the survey out at your time to meeting that's one of the best places that would be great it's in May okay no special one they won't do a special one for this I'm sure um okay so it sounds do we why don't we take a quick vote on um having oh boy what are we doing we're doing the um having the survey Joanne we'll have you go forward with with formulating the survey but we will um have it reviewed by the actual task force that is ultimately formed in the hopefully near future um and not by our board individually anyone want to second that one thank God this is being recorded I'm just saying I got to go back to the recording for this so Joan will Jon will um second that all in favor I great thank you guys and I just have one final question also um and I don't know if this is for for Holly to figure out and get back to me on but um in order to get the contract over to you guys for review I just need to um determine what payment schedule would work for you so we could do you know all up front if that's easiest for the town and just a single payment or we can break it up into two payments so one for example so half UPF front and half when we have a draft presented to you all um I don't know if anybody has a preference Holly if you have a preference you and I can discuss that I don't okay I was gonna say I don't think any of us have the ability to to answer that question cool so I'll follow up with you about that Holly and and ultimately you did you mention that it's the Town Administrator that will ultimately sign the contract is that yeah I think that's how it works in your town right Holly the town admin signs all contracts yes yeah okay great so that between Holly and Keith and and yourself that that question can get answered but we would love to obviously see the contract um before it gets signed but yeah okay and I'll send you guys the scope of work in it earlier anyway or Holly you can share that with them because that'll show you like the steps as well and what it will look like with the timeline right you can just forward that to great sounds good good that's awesome I'm very excited actually that this is moving forward I'm also very excited that we're individually as a board not going to be exclusively burdened by this you know because as as um as great as this entire thing is going to be ultimately um my biggest concern was always going to be the burden that we were taking on so I'm thrilled that we're sharing that burden um well we will be sharing that burden with other members of the town and um moving forward thank you so much Joan thank you for your time thank you julan oh you're very welcome thank you all happy holidays you too bye bye bye to have the um go back to for okay all right moving on I would like to give Holly her opportunity to do the director's report please thank you I'll be quick um I think everyone a copy she has sure no problem um so we just heard from Joanne um she and I had a conversation a couple weeks ago very similar to what she talked about today so I thought it would be beneficial for her to just rejoin us and recap um in the meantime I have identified a few people people who have actually expressed interest to me so I do have a short list of people from the community not just from these four walls um yeah so we're in good shape great that um as Chris mentioned the friends gave a donation to um to fund the postage for our newsletter mailing from January through June um so that's very gracious and that covers the cost of mailing the newsletters every month and that cost continues to go up through it's almost a dollar he's at this point well well so we get bulk rate so it's 38 cents they've been raising it yes uh the staff um we're currently so I've already done it but the rest of the staff is doing Alice training active shooter training um all departments have had to do it within the town so that along with CPR training which something you have to do every couple of years um we're beginning programming for 2025 the middle of programming for 20 25 I guess because that's right around the corner so looking at um you know programs that worked that didn't work exercise classes if anyone has feedback of things that they've done here and and liked or didn't like um we're certainly open to your suggestions we get a lot of Fross uh you know instructors that go to many other coas in the area so we always love to hear about what You' experienced at at another aging that you'd like to see come here um we've recently gotten back online with the local scene they do uh it's a segment called looking ahead and it's with COA directors from COA directors and program managers from Kingston Plymouth duxberry and see H um so we go on and talk about what's ahead what programs and events are coming up for the next month or just generally what's happening at the COA it shows it loops on the local scene um it's only you know like six or seven minutes per pouncil on Aging but it gives a good overview of what's happening what's new um and what's what people have to look forward to in the different area councils on aging is there a specific day that that is aired um that's I don't know so we record on the third Wednesday of every month we all record on the same day so I'm assuming it's available the next week so probably the final week of the month for the following month so I'm recording I'm sorry we can watch this you can watch this through the local scene is it the to uh so it's through the local scene what used to be pack TV yeah but I can give you the as so if you go back to their their website s if you've ever gone to look for recorded meeting um segments it would be under there and and there would just be it would be under Kingston but it'll be under there in one of their headings yeah it's called I don't know wa was she we've had a couple of interviews the giv to the people the seniors again oh you went through before yes uh from the board or just as so we did the Alice training does sound familiar we didn't do active shooter training we did Alice training though because I was I was here as the board you mean no it was the regular the public was here right the detectives the two detectives were here and they went through everything which I think people should know what to do absolutely I can ask them if they be willing do that again I think it would be a great idea I don't think that had an active shooter element though did it yes I don't think did yeah oh okay I guess I'm liking on that piece but oh I yeah I remember I remember sitting through the training I just don't remember the active shter part but either way it could be I think it's a good thing to know what to do comes through that rights I'm on TV um just quick updates from the other parts of the COA Transportation program is um thriving in October we did 381 rides and in November we did 291 rides and you know just because I was thinking back to the summer about the construction projects Ona and how our drivers really uh were able to navigate those challenges and and not the passengers see very minimal impact in terms of timing and getting to where they need it to be so um our drivers are great and they continue to work hard um Jenny our Outreach coordinator is still um you know getting acclimated here in Kingston uh but she's been super busy the last couple months with all of her Outreach Services um she's was helping with fuel assist you know this time of the year is fuel assistance with uh sore Community Action Council she held a training seminar to assist clients with um the applications recertifications and VI applications so uh recently she was screening and scheduling shine appointments during open enrollment our shine counselor added uh I think a day a week so she was here two days for like six weeks during the open enrollment period Jenny um did all the screenings for those and we saw 66 clients during the Open Enrollment um and in addition she recently revamped our Wednesday B and go program and she continues to work on issues regarding food insecurity housing troubles and so much more an active office yes um I did a little print out here for you which is just the number of meals served at Cafe Evergreen I guess kind of for my own purposes I wanted to see like a a year at a glance um so this does go a little bit over a year but you can see just the numbers and then in the notes you can see when we had certain special meals um Lucy for instance can definitely attest to the Thursdays being wild sometimes Wednesday she there on Wednesdays um so we continue to operate four days a week doing breakfast and lunch um we over the last year worked really hard to create a variety of meals and we're now able to take a full Four Season look because we do change the menu seasonally so you can see what we did in the fall and the spring so on um and I sat down with Phil the other day and he really has a great understanding for what items sell and what doesn't again because now we have that full year and um he's always looking for feedback and suggestions he's always willing to tailor items to people's dietary needs and desires um we recently held our Thanksgiving lunch in here for over a hundred people and this Thursday we're doing our holiday lunch in so um those numbers you do see included in the the total meal for so we're doing really well and G to continue we'll have a new menu coming out for winter time sandwi I find it really interesting just at a quick glance Without Really studying this too much but it seems as if our our biggest hitting months tend to be the cooler weather months which is different than I would have expected um I would expected we'd have more attendance in like the spring and summer but those numbers are are lower overall I mean they're not low numbers but they're just lower overall than say you know October November and that just surprises me that's all 100 great awesome thank you for that okay any questions for Holly how you doing I'm good all right moving on I um I hesitate to call this a Chairman's report it's more of some you know random notes in my head but um I know we don't of get one and it's you know two little paragraphs here but I figured there's a couple things I'd mentioned to you um I know you're all very interested on the update for the search for our new permanent director um I am a member of that committee committee has yet to actually meet but the first meeting is this week um and as of right now as I put on here there's 13 candidates that have applied um there's a committee of six people which I've listed who the six people are for you just so you're aware um and again meetings begin this month interviews were originally we were hoping to have interviews start with the candidates this month but um just due to holiday schedules and and everybody's personal schedules uh that's getting going to get pushed out to to January So the plan is to um to meet to uh Whittle down the candidates to a more manageable number I believe that numbers five or six candidates and then in turn take those remaining candidates through the interview process in June in January so that's where we are this is the committee this is the committee she is um oh I thought she was Tina uh Tina so Tina's coordinating it but I guess she's not actually officially on the committee um okay so more to come on that um so we have questions or we would like you to ask a couple of things well that's why I had sent you that email so make sure you get something back to me if you want you know many of you did um send me things to consider and things to you know questions to ask but you know send that to me sooner than later um and then resurrecting scams in honor of uh Mr favara um really I just wanted to share my own personal experience with um it turned out to not be a scam however um it could have very easily have been so you know when we we've all got you know text alerts on our phone of course our bank has our phone number and we create you you know the first step that's supposed to happen if you if you're if some sort of fraudulent activity your bank determines that fraudulent activity is happening on your card or one of your cards is they reach out to you of course right um is this you did you do this are you trying to buy this $4,000 TV from Best Buy whatever um yes or no but of course now the problem is how do we know any of those texts are actually accurate because we get all kinds of other things and there's a link embedded so this is my personal experience I got the text message you know this is Citizens Bank I'm like but is it how am I supposed to know if it is or not um click this link you know we've we've got fragile inactivity on your account click this link to to let us know if this is you or not and I'm like not clicking no link sorry but I'm not doing that but of course I'm still very very nervous now going well is this real or is it not real if I ignore it is it going to go through um so what I did instead is called my Bank's number that I am aware that I know is their number just called them directly um went through you know their series of yes PR one for this no for this got to the fraud department then verified all my personal information I didn't mind giving them my Social Security because I called them um I certainly wasn't going to give it to somebody that was calling me saying did do this well let's check your account information I wasn't going to do it that way so um it turned out it was fraudulent activity and they tried to get about $1,400 but it got stopped and um and it was Best Buy and somebody was using my card online to order through Best Buy what was actually even scarier is they did in fact have my phone number too so as a secondary so it turns out that all of the the texts that I were getting were active were I didn't end up clicking the links but it was citizens actually trying to get in touch with me um I didn't answer any of those but while I was sitting in the bank so citizens shut my card down for me they put in a claim against the fragile inactivity that had already attempted to go through um or actually had already pulled for my account I went instead of waiting for a week to 10 days for my new card to arrive who can go a week in this day and AG without their credit card by the way nobody than you so I went to the bank and got one issued immediately while I was sitting in the bank um waiting to to meet with the woman Best Buy called me I answered the phone and it was a gentleman saying he was from Best Buy and I was like yeah right are you really I was mad I was like are you really from Best Buy I was yelling at him and he's like I am I'm in the shipping department and I wanted to confirm your order I actually think the poor man that I was yelling at did actually work at Best Buy I'm starting to think he did because um what he said to me afterwards and I kind of processed it differently but I'm like you're you know I went right in like you're trying to steal my money you I didn't no no no it wasn't me at all like I definitely didn't place any orders um but online it had been through Best Buy that you know that was who that was the the vendor the the order was going through um so fast forward I'm now sitting at the bank with waiting for my new card to be issued I get a phone call from somebody who identified himself as Best Buy saying so he had my phone number um saying I'm just in the shipping department and I can't ship this I see that there's a problem with the order and I can't and which at this point has now gone through the system and been marked as fraudulent so I'm sure so he's like so wait a minute are you telling me you didn't order this and I'm like I didn't order it the whole thing is fraudulent you know I didn't order it I'm hanging up on you now lucky like I really was really mad at this guy um thing he just was you know right in that moment and he was like okay I'm not gonna ship then so then I hung up and I went well I wonder what they were gonna sh so he's not gonna ship it which means that man wasn't trying to steal my money um so anyway that was a funny little finish to the whole he was like I'm just trying some he like somebody ordered a really nice computer I don't know I thought I was checking to see if it was you so the only piece that I can't explain and still don't necessarily know is how they how they linked my phone number yeah to my credit you know people steal your credit card numbers all the time and I get that you know and there had been two times during the week that week leading up to that that you know my card had gone into um a gas station um and maybe was skimmed at the gas station or um we gone to a restaurant and instead of them bringing now I I find finally understand now the U benefit to these restaurants bringing these little um tablets to your table your card never leaves your presence at that point in time it's always in your view and you know I used to think what's the big deal but used but instead I had gone to a different restaurant who took it and then I'm like well I don't know what happened I don't know if somebody took a picture of it I don't know what happened with it so um anyway I have lots of still thoughts about oh I get this now and I get that now and um and all of that but that was my um that was my experience on fraudulent activity that ended up coming full circle did you ask the kids if they ordered you a new computer for Christmas nobody ordered me a computer no nobody's doing that we did have the police chief here and he was telling us how you can avoid that by doing something to your C and I can't remember what it was because no it it was something that if if something big like that got ordered it would it wouldn't I don't know I don't remember what that was either but I also did find out recently the benefit so you know how our cards all have the chips now um and I never quite understood how the chips were um more security had had more security enhancement because I thought it you know you're hitting the chip um and sometimes you're still entering your chip your your debit code and sometimes you're not and I was thinking well somebody could still steal my card and ship it and that's more on the store so some stores have lower thresholds yeah for the amount of money you're spending whether you need to enter your debit card or not your PIN number or not um so that could still happen somebody could still steal your card physically use the chip the tap function of the Chip and possibly still skate through without having to know your PIN number fine but um the other benefit of that over sliding it is is the skimmer so if you're at a machine that has had a skimmer attached to it if you tap you bypass the skimmer so that's the benefit of the Chip and one benefit of the chip versus actually inserting you know what I don't understand is why you pay a bill by check everything on that check could be ripped off ripped off because your name your address your phone number your bank account number your routing number it's right there mention something about this crazy world we had a plumber at the house yesterday he was telling us within the past year he wrote an 800 check put it in the mailbox and it ends up someone retrieved that check from the mailbox I think they took a crowbar get into the mailbox or use some kind of wire with that sticky stuff they use from STS they changed to 8,000 they wiped his account out he never got never happen to me yeah no it's crazy you know I thinking about the bank should have paid all right so that's what I wanted to share there with that experience um I'm going to just mention this as he was oner old business um I have listed bylaws and our policies and procedures refresh now before you all cringe um what I mean by that is our bi let see if you remember we did our policies and procedures first finalized those then we did our bylaws second F took a long time to finalize those but now there are things there are final pieces of our bylaws which now go back and affect our policies and procedures so unfortunately we must revisit um latest oh yeah absolutely yeah yeah I'm just bringing this up mentioning this now but yes um so I don't know if it's easier if you guys would like to proceed and just review it as our board and cross reference like I don't even it's been such a long process and we did this and then we did this and then we did this and then we did this I don't actually even remember what pieces don't match anymore um and I would really love some help um maybe through um a working group or something or just all of you wanting to to review it and talk about it at the next meeting um some help identifying where the where the where they don't match and making the revisions that we need to make so would you guys like to do that as a whole group or just a couple want to carve off and do that in the working group and then present it back to us the last okay the last uh thing I have on it is back in 23 is that the uh the policies I can't see I can't see that far is that is that the policies that's fine so that that's probably right because we did the policies first did it we did the policies first yeah yeah and then we did the bylaw second we should have done them the other way around um so I you're right that they they probably need to be Revisited period yeah but but they absolutely need to be Revisited because of the bylaws changes that we so we get new copies we can put them side by side and do it as a group step by step okay so I'll send to the group um ask you guys to review that between now and our next meeting um and then maybe we can try to get that freshened up okay um and we're not going to do that right now I have like five different well and that's true too I've gotta wait through which ones are the final vers of everything but I'm pretty sure we have them um Chris thank you for coming appreciate it um anyone have any questions or concerns before we adjourn yeah we're gonna bump that I threw it on for old business just just in in case oh yes thank you for asking do we have anybody that we should be remembering no that's good it's a very good thing but there's none okay actually jer's mother fellow that I tell um I I have a family friend who has um lost his mom he took care of his mom she was 96 years old the poor man is totally lost in space his wife passed away about four years ago so his mom has been doing all his reading and what have you he unfortunately is illiterate and can't read or right so he's gotten himself into a big mess by not being able to redo his um applications and what have you but Council has been helping him what's his last name I'll give it to you later okay so we can just remember his mom remember Mom yeah um okay yeah Dora her name is do thank you and it was a sad situation okay she was due to come home she passed the morning she was gonna come home he still comes here yeah he comes here into January our next meeting will be January 14 I believe Christmas everybody um I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas thank you wonderful Hanukkah if you celebrate I'm not going so anyone want to make a motion to adjourn I make a motion wej our meeting and until and re we Rec reconvene in January very second that all right thank you everybody take care happy holidays oh