Good evening. It is January 8th and we are going to call to order the cultural council meeting at 6:00 p.m. We'll start with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the
republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Okay, welcome everybody. We have a short agenda for today. Uh the agenda for today includes the recap of the
approvals and uh the begin plannings for an award event uh by the council. Um, I'm going to go over uh the a recap of all approvals. Um, all approvals that were denied were notified and the 15-day period available for them to appeal was
observed prior to sending all written notifications for the approved proposals. 24 projects approved and all have received notification except two. The Lina Theater Company for Bombboyage and meet Julia Child's events and city of Riviera for the Rea Beach Pride
celebration. They were uh notified verbally though. Uh letters will be going out for both um by the uh the end of this week by the chair. Um at in the chambers is me Jamie vice um vice chair
of the committee and I am leading in the absence of Rocky our chair for today. Um I don't know if the council want to present yourselves. Go ahead. Debbie West, Lark Logan,
>> Joe Hayitz. >> Thank you. As we continue, um, all written notifications included the reimbursement form with instructions as well as access to the form to submit feedback, pictures from the events um,
to all that were sent for uh, that received approval. Uh we also offered in our our email uh council support and members willingness to participate at all the events. Does the council have anything else they want to add?
>> I was just going to share a breakdown of how um what groups the awards went to like the dollar value. Um Reier Public Schools received $23,687. Um, Immaculate Conception, a private school in Rea received 1,500. The senior
centers for projects received 6,290. Uh, Mass General Youth Zone 520 and General Community Events 10,250. >> Noted. Thank you, De.
Also, we do say that if you were turned down uh that you go back to the drawing board and you kind of revamp revisit your proposals, don't get uh discouraged with them. Um we are in 2026. It is a new year. We will be taking new
proposals in October of this year. So, go back um and if you submitted one, you could also submit two or three. Uh we do welcome your proposal. Start thinking now. I know it's a long way off, but that time will sneak up on you.
>> Thank you, Joe. >> Okay, moving on to the next item on the agenda. So, as part of the uh as a console, we do have a percentage of um of of funds that we can utilize for events by the council. So, we did keep an administrative fee and the total kept
was $853 for us to use toward an an award event. Um, we are hoping to put this together in the summer. Um, hopefully right before the beginning of the summer or in the summer. Um, we're hoping to present awards and we encourage all the awardees
uh to present and come in and talk about their projects or present part of their projects. Um, so that's what we're looking forward to, uh, reconvening in March to go into more detail of the event. Um, we do need, uh, council
members, we do need to look for a venue. So, I'm looking for volunteers so we could go between now and the next meeting, we can look into locations that can support, where there is donated space or something that we can do. The funds are limited. We did keep only
about $853. We didn't keep that much. We wanted to give most of the money out, but we do want to make sure we um have an event to for the awardees and um and for the city. >> Does anybody um have
uh any idea about an an event or place? >> Lark, go ahead. >> What size venue are you thinking? I mean, what would what would it accommodate? How many people? >> That would be up for us to discuss. What are we looking to to do? reminding
reminded of the limited amount that we have. >> Seeing that it's summer, perhaps even an outside thing that we're not really paying for that we could use at a park or, you know, one of the school grounds or something.
>> Okay, that's a possibility. I think for us this would be something to h to to to further discuss at the next meeting. Um we are on a cycle where we meet every month but I want to bring up for to to as a motion
for us to skip the February meeting um and reconvene in March. >> I'll motion to um skip the February meeting and convene again on March 12th. >> I second that. >> So we will reconvene on March
And let's see in this awards ceremony also it's not just our opportunity to meet you but you guys to meet each other. Um it's very um important to organize a cultural tapestry so you guys know of all your
welldoings. Um so it's a networking um opportunity for everyone that comes to it. Wonderful. And it's also an opportunity for you to present the project if it's something that you want to participate in on the event to present what you were what you did or what you're doing. Um I
think it's a good opportunity for that. I think uh to showcase what and spotlight your event. So I think it will be a good opportunity for you to do that as well whether it's a past event depend contingent on the dates or whether it's coming up. So I think it's a good opportunity for for spotlighting and marketing your event.
Also, if you wanted to bring in, we did have quite a few uh musical grants that we gave out to different musicians and stuff. If you'd like to showcase maybe what your musical talents at this event, uh this would be a great forum to do that so other people can see uh what
talents you bring to the table. >> That's a good idea. Last thing I wanted to say on my end and as a reminder to all of those that were awarded, congratulations. Um we would love to be part if if possible and applicable um and participate at those
those events. Um council members here are volunteering to participate when whenever possible and schedule permits. So please invite us. We would love to to participate and be part of um your event. We did include on the email that was sent out with the approval um a link
to a form so you could submit feedback about your event, submit pictures from your event u so we can we can see that and showcase that through our u different social media channels things like that. So it will be great for us to see um and if able uh participate at
those events. It's not it's not just your events uh but some of your planning uh meetings as well. Uh we are open to going to them. Um so send us an invite so we'll find more about your um organization um and
what it does. I mean we do read up on your organization but it's also nice to be included in other aspects of your uh planning. So what your year your typical year looks like. we might just get a little kind of a a photo of one event
that you're sending us or one proposal that you're sending us, but you do multiple proposals um and multiple events during the year so we'd have a better understanding of you. Um Revier is a complex place. We have many organizations, we have many councils, we
have many committees. So um the worst we can do is say that one of us is not available to come. Um, but the best you can get is maybe all of us are available to come to your uh meeting and kind of find out more about you and the best way
to find out about you is firsthand. >> Thank you, Joe. And we all of council members were in that email that was sent out. We're part of that group. So, if you want if you reply um we're there so we can we can hear from you directly. So, thank you all. Uh any council
members have anything else to add or to review today's meeting? Do I have a motion? Do I have a motion to adjurnn? >> Motion to adjourn. Meeting. >> I second. >> Okay. Meeting has ended at 6:10 p.m.
Thank you all for your time.