can you hear me can anyone hear me yes can you hear me Susan oh here we can hear you okay good morning good afternoon everybody hi
Let's see we have four people here yay apologies for being late i had company and um I lost track of the time and I'm looking for my agenda i was just
trying to print my agenda and I'm going to try again is right here but I guess we should start by um uh roll call so we usually do roll call in
alphabetical order which probably means that Mary Joe goes first right because we have a an M and two M's and an S and a J okay so Mary Joe you need you need to
say you're here okay i'm Mary Joe even though my little sign says Melody I'm borrowing her computer mary Joe Johnson and I'm here which is great mp's here millinger here dr here great thank you
very much and we are starting this at 5:35 and I think we okay you all understand that because we have had very few meetings which have had a quorum all those minutes that I've t taken are not formal minutes and so I don't think
they're just notes for our use and probably theoretically we should not have held meetings without a quorum but it's done and we'll have whatever consequences we will discuss so our first item since our first item
is not minutes our first item is financial report to our treasurer um so um they're a mess um I didn't get to um diving into the reports that I got
from from the accountant um I did I did look at some of them it seems like some of our deposits may be missing off of them um but there were deposits that were prior
to me taking it over so I'm going to have to go through and go through all of that with the accountant to get the firm total of what we actually have um she had she had um emailed me
um what we what we have um prior to the foot clinic and it wasn't very much um let me pull that up so we have um
$3942 in our general fund that the um the town gives us um she has a total of 115 in the revolving account and only 45250 in the grant money and that was before the foot
clinic um last week no the foot clinic foot clinic is next week the third week oh oh I mean no okay scratch that that was before I got the invoice last week
for the foot clinic for the month before for the month before before we paid the March clinic right that would be for the March clinic i'm sorry okay I'm still in March in my head i know
so let me just get a little make sure that I've got this right for the for the minutes we actually have real minutes we will minutes for the April meeting so we have 45250 from the grant yes before paying for it we and we have 3942 which
is what's left of the 200 town monies correct so what is the other the hunt that's in the revolving account from the donations oh okay gotcha yes so um so we really have nothing we really have nothing we have enough to
pay the March foot bill yeah yeah and there was donations that came through um the um no that those those would have gone on there already so yeah that's probably that's probably the $110 that's there
was the donations that went um that came in for maybe hold on let me look see what what Susan sent me okay i don't remember what
the donations were it's really hard to to um so when I send her a warrant she just takes it out of like wherever she wants to and I don't always know where she's taking it out
i don't think that she should do that i think that they should come out of our grant right and then if if we put a note saying um you know um to use the money out of the out of the donations amount so
it'sund $135 um was for for the March clinic so it it seems like that's not even that's not even on the information she gave me okay so we may have even more but let me I have to go up there
tomorrow anyway to see Grace um an absentee ballot let me see if she's in Adele go lay down let me see if she she's in the office and maybe I can I can go over it with her okay or at least
make an appointment for a good time so Stockton here i have a question uh I'm sorry i missed who she is who's she oh that's the town accountant the town accountant gail so who is it gail
gail what do you Her last name i'm not sure is her last name but it's not Gail Fly Shaker no no no no no the accountant with somebody else i'm not quite sure what her last name is i'd be happy to look it up and let you know
okay it's It's not important i just I just didn't know first who she was and then I was curious about if it was the other the other Gail i mean how many hats does that woman wear um have a lot of Gail's on staff okay so Gail
Gail the accountant now when you say that there's no money left are we waiting for money or we have we have we Yeah waiting for the second half of the grant and I contacted my contact at age and he said he they expect it the end of
this month okay and Jessica how much should that part of the grant be the last second half of the grant can do you know offhand i'm I I do not know well we've got in the records how much
the first half was right is I don't know if it's the same it should be most years it's exactly the same we're given in the other half in the spring okay so I can tell you what our first half was let me
pull it up twice i think twice okay yes that sounds familiar uh Susan um where are those reports she sent me the reports right here it was a total of $4,282.50
280 what sorry $4,282.50 okay so as long as it's the same amount that that's that's what we would get okay so that's I mean in as of May we we should have money to spend and hopefully we won't be paying
for things we had to spend in in um April at that time so um okay let's not worry about the April foot clinic because this is one of my months and I'm intending to cover
whatever is needs to be covered from it okay um that's very generous of you well you know thank you but it's something that I can do thanks to the fact that my brother really screwed me badly by lar leaving me a large sum of money which I
have to pay taxes on so it's a gift from my brother um so if we what I what I'm wondering if if we could spend a little time on talking about what we would what we have for expected expenditures between now and
the end of June this uh our fiscal year that we would like to take out of that 4,28250 that's projected to be received yes so then that would leave the just the May and the June foot clinic yes yes and
library director looks like I just jot it i my printer wasn't working for me so we have the foot clinic we have library director ask village neighbors gift and newsletter right
so the normal I'll go first the normal foot chemical clinic is roughly between $415 to $430 um a month that's if we get small donations
so I don't know if you want to budget the whole amount so we just we to make sure that we have that yes the full amount of the the eight people at $25 an hour and then the six hours that she's there if you want to do
the whole amount in the budget and we probably have leftover but that would be you know the safest probably I think it would be the but meanwhile we can have a sort of separate budget with what we were expecting hoping to get right right
so does that mean we need to since you're talking about this ends in June that we would be budgeting for three months April May June for the foot clinic no because uh Susan just said that she was taking care of a large
donation so we wouldn't have that much of a bill for for April okay so May I'm just wondering if it's months yonder or if it's just till June that's what I The fiscal year stops at the end of June
okay so that would be $830 then in theory yes okay um do we have information yet from the library director as to what yes we do we've had it for some time but I kept telling her that we will let her know
when we'd be able to meet and talk and yeah so the the uh library director is requesting 1,500 and that would go through June um it's okay she we usually give her two
sums of money one in the fall for classes and one in the spring for classes okay okay and Village Neighbors has request which is something they send it to us because we need it for our accountant right but the sum that's on
it um John the treasurer said can be changed and the on it is a thousand but last I think last year is the only year we gave them a thousand we've ordinarily given them 500
And I don't know if I should be saying anything again because I'm in village neighbors we know we know they deserve as much as we can give them the is just whether we can give it to them and still put out a newsletter which we're going to need to put out a newsletter at the
very least with information about the dementia project sometime between now and the end of June I would suspect you think um well there is uh just so you know I'm picking up the postcard tomorrow that's
going to be telling literally every household in Lever New Salem Shootsbury and Wendell about this grant so we could um we could rely on that at this time um and maybe put off the newsletter
till we're really truly underway until we have more money coming in um because I think they'll they'll there'll probably be more information there'll be more information going out to the public that it doesn't necessarily have to go through the newsletter we could also
instead of a newsletter if we wanted to save money we could also go for the postcard format because it would be so much less money well what I've thought about and this is something we can all certainly all discuss today and I
mentioned this to Jessica is putting out something that's much simpler in order than what we've done in the past and doing it locally as we've done it in the past so that the only real expenses will be postage okay okay because we'll I
don't think we have to get from get to pay for the paper that we use if we're xeroxing copying at the um town copy machines but even if we do that would be a limited expense because we wouldn't have copying itself we would just have
the paper and then we would have us and whoever we can get in help us put it together but if it's only one sheet front and back there won't be much putting together involved it would be interesting uh to play
devil's advocate to kind of cost it and see if we have to mail out um even if it's simpler it's still going to be what is it 70 cents a piece because we won't get the uh No we won't be big enough to get the reduction well right
whereas if we do it through um this Adams guy it's like 13 cents or something just and he and he does it uh through some kind of uh he generates um I guess he would generate the the mail
who who who gets mail in Shootsbury and then it ends up being much much much less well Linda always said that it was cheaper to send out from him and and I'm not saying that that that that I think we should look into that but okay I think we need a newsletter not just to
talk about whatever dementia programs but for other things that we're doing we need we're going to be needing something i think we ought to be advertising um we all obviously ought to advertise the foot clinic we ought to advertise and how much it costs we are
expecting patrons to put in and we ought to advertise community lunch mhm and and we're looking for new members the digital advocacy the the digital equity um activity soon and I've
tried to get Gail Huntress this is another Gail um who's in charge of that to and I've had a couple of conversations with her now um she says it's hard to work on the budget and there hasn't been a um we're
going to be she said the f the important focus for us will be getting in an a sort of a technical expert who will come to people's houses and help them in their house with their technology issues which will be um
a lot mostly that will be paid that'll be paid for by the grant we don't have to worry about paying for the person as I understand it but we'll be responsible for the publicity about it so if Gail's got that going by you know
mid by enough time in June for us to send out I think and if we know enough about digital about what's going on with the dementia project that specifically affects Chitzbury people I think we definitely should send something out and
we'll and I I agree we need you're right Janette we need to talk with Frank is it Frank Adams um I can but I'm I'm picking up postcards tomorrow so maybe I'll have a quick conversation with him yeah ask him if we had a one or two page newsletter you know to go to as many
people as we send at Chutsbury which is about half the population of the half the households yeah i don't um what I don't know um and maybe it's silly to talk about it right now but we send out to literally every
household we don't so he has um so he sends out but yeah yeah I don't know if he would be able to callull that's the only well actually would be the only issue uh well that there's a list that Linda
and Joanne have given me of the names that they sent to but actually which he already has would just need to be revised you know okay all right so I'll check in with him about it but but Actually folks do you
think we should send it to everybody because everybody's affected by the de dementia issue caregivers who may be 40 are affected and lunch everybody can is invited everybody's invited to lunch
and um even if we if we advertise the exercise that we're paying for everyone's invited to that and digital ed equity potentially is as well that's more of a um Yeah uh you know just
wow I'm losing my words um can I ask another question um as we know you know Janice has just passed um really sad do we will we do some kind of recognition of that as well in this or that would be
a nice idea i think Jessica's got a a piece of business that relates to Janice remember okay but I agree that would also be a good item for the newsletter all right um so what do you how can we how can we
look at this this budget then since we don't Well let's let's add up okay first of all we need to decide are we willing to give maybe we should add it all up what the requests are and then see how whether we can pay all the requests and
how much there would be left for newsletter does that make sense to do right how much is the newsletter uh ballpark as it stands anyone know offhand what that it it would come out once or twice a year or just once well last year it just came
out once but remember it was a huge issue and it would be in the annual report and let's see if I can real quickly okay that would certainly help because if we're talking about sending it out in June [Music]
um you know we'll we'll be right at the end of of our money okay i don't see the annual report there i can um I've got one other folder no it's not there
okay so I do not know where my copy of the annual report is but I can um I can access it and send you the information if that helps okay well we we just can't we can't really do numbers um well we can do numbers and see how
much left we would have left for at the most for a newsletter right okay so if we say the foot clinics are 430 and if the library request is 1,500 and village neighbors request is a th00and
what have we got there so 830 was 830 oh that would be 33 3330 I think $3,330 okay and I'm just going to make the the thought that if we do a smaller you know
if we do the newsletter and we we aim to maybe figuring out a way to do it with this much reduced postage that you know it would have to be $670 um I just have one quick question yep um
especially if we're if we're we're doing this and then ending up with nothing what's going to happen to July August cuz we don't get our grant until September October then we're going to be going into the
red again in the past until this year everybody knew the grant was coming and we were allowed to spend right right but we're not let do that this year
what did you say gail did not let us do that this past year and we need to find out whether she would another year next year she wouldn't let us do it because um of our financial problems right
i'm just worried we're not going to have anything and then we're not going to get our grant until September October yeah if we're lucky i think we got it even later this year so it's essential to know whether or not Gail will let us
um charge in advance right uh I could also ask I mean I'm sure village neighbors would be happy to take that whenever they could get it honestly so we could always put that off um I don't know if it messes with their end of year
blah blah blah but you know what to a certain extent we we get it when we they get it when they get it if we can cheapen up the newsletter a little bit and um and we were talking about maybe seeing if we could do do the
foot clinic maybe I think I remember we talked about that last week that we could see if people would be okay if some of the people would be okay with the with a cheaper service if we could get it not that I looked into it i did not i'll be honest i just brought it up
what do we feel about that well I feel that um there's one town that is doing it and it's been very successful and it's like $15 maybe for a client to get serviced as opposed to
65 um so fiscally it would you know a lot of people I had argued that a lot of people come there's a lot of repetition in our clientele um so if they have some you know real
foot issue they've they've heard about it already um and going to the foot clinic does not um preclude people come from going to their their doctor if they feel like there's something but that's just me
saying like "Wow we're paying an a a huge amount of money for this these foot clinic uh the customers we're paying over more than half of our budget $415 time
12 and it just seems like the other three towns around us are not that different in fact we're probably a little more well off than um at least one of the towns and you know they're
making it they seem to be making it happen well okay but two two of the towns right now three of the four towns are using the foot care by nurses for a foot clinic right
three three three of the four sorry I've got too many fingers up three of the four towns are using foot care by nurses so the question is how can they do it and we haven't and the problem is that we've had we didn't get going early enough explaining to people that it had
gotten more expensive and they needed to to pin more started that and some of the people simply can't i understand that yes um some of the people simply can't but some of the people can and it it just seems
like we're giving them a way out um we can we can try and say to them it would be nice if you kicked in more um but lever lever does not give a choice lever does not give a choice and people pay it
yeah and I'm not sure about I'm not sure how Wendle um how they handle the uh the cost i could find that out at some point but it's f it comes to $5,000 and what is it we get $8,000 a
year a$85 which leaves $3,500 and I'm assuming that we're not we don't get a lot of donations we were lucky last month sometimes we will sometimes we won't we simply I mean that was the first month that people knew was it not that people knew in advance that they
were going to be asked to give more yes so maybe it will get better it got better and maybe it will continue to get better we can only hope yeah the one thought I had was since the charges are split up between the $25 per person and then the
hourly if we put a mandatory $25 um at least $25 donation then they will at least be picking up that part and then we are only responsible for the hours paying them for the hours that
they work here in town and is it what is the pay for the hour is it 60 for the hour 60 an hour okay so that really means that people are only responsible for 55 a half of the 60 plus their 25
what i'm sorry i'm sorry what how many hours does the foot clinic run runs 9 to one lately so I think hold on i think it's usually six hours if there's a no show they don't charge us
for for um the cost per patient for the cost yeah right for the hour so So if somebody doesn't show up they don't charge us for for that time here um so charge us for the time 60 an hour so
it's four hours they charge us $240 for four hours so if if that were to work that would still cost a pretty penny but it's a tiny bit prettier yeah yeah but I like the I like us trying to get closer to what lever's
doing which is please which is to say between 30 and 50 with exception i mean does leverage not have any exceptions for people that can't afford it i I believe that people can lobby and and ask and if that should
occur here um you know I know there's absolutely one person who is who is really having difficulty um I think that they they do make exceptions but for the most part I think most people pay at least the minimum which would be 30
maybe 35 i feel like it was goes from 35 to 55 oh that's what I had in my minutes 30 to 50 would be okay then I could be wrong i have been wrong before say maybe it's gone up since that figure was used i
mean it's always on lever it connects um how many um how many clients come during that time is it half an hour each yes I think it's eight isn't it so eight yeah there's eight slots um they're usually all filled um depending on if
they show up or not so that's that's $240 right there right so that would pay for almost half if we could get most people to be able to to
do that um the other thing that had come up is if people don't want to pay that that's too much for them um they would potentially we could set something up with New Salem that they could go over to New Salem and get the slightly
reduced um you you know maybe it's not quite the doctor or whatever it is um and they would pay I think more like 15 because so we could give people that option and say if you can't do you do you know that that's a possibility for
Yes yes g um Jean Clayton who uh runs it um did talk to me about that that would be beneficial to them um as well but I think people who you know confronted with that they might think to themselves I've got to get all
the way over to New Salem and back and it's a $10 savings maybe I'll just give the $25 well we're asking for 30 oh now we're asking for 30 okay no no i mean that's the 30 is the lower limit I
thought at at le which is why 30 okay mary Joe do you have an opinion on this i know you've kind of been thrown into the middle of an ongoing discussion yeah um I guess I'm I'm seeing sense in pretty much everything
that everybody's saying um and I think it sounds like a good idea to give people an option to go someplace that's a little less expensive i think that spending that much of your budget on that few people maybe isn't such a
great idea but I don't know where else the budget is going potentially if it didn't go here so I'm I'm kind of I'm in listening mode a little bit sure understood and and those are good
points but but if Mary Joe if if our budget is $8,500 and we don't change this $5,000 of it goes directly to people's feet um right I think that's a little um I think that's a little much especially
considering there are probably a lot of people that don't take advantage of the foot clinic right and then are not benefiting insurance and could possibly covered in another way mhm mayor Joe in terms of it's basically about 16 people
uh there are a couple of pe like now I think there are two people is that right Jessica who get foot clinic at home the foot care nurse goes to their home yeah but they haven't I haven't seen them that they haven't gone for a few months
okay and that that's a $100 charge and we get we get end up making up from that too because they don't always pay the $100 charge they give a $30 donation yeah
so um you know I think in in all honesty if unless they're absolutely homebound if they want a home visit that should be their responsibility unless I mean unless they're they're
absolutely homebound you know you know homebound homebound not just because it's more convenient for them or more comfortable for them right and that's something that we can find out easily because the footare nurse knows whether they're she can tell where they're
really homebound right and I think she was telling me that um one person was okay really homebound but yeah you know I'm thinking that um the beginning of a new fiscal year
and it would be a good time for a completely new policy so that we need to suffer through April May and June and then um and ha have maybe maybe talk to people a little bit but that would certainly be something
definitely to advertise in our newsletter to talk about that for 16 people because Mary Joe the way foot clinic works I don't know if you know this um it's the third Wednesday of the month from 9 to 1 and there's eight people in January and a
different eight people in February and goes so half the clients are seen every other month um yeah when you think about the money we're saying spending on 16 people it does definitely does not seem right
that's what I think too yeah i mean the the only other concern I think there might be is and another question is if the foot clinic were not available to people what are the other options they
could use I mean that I was immediately thinking people that are homebound would maybe have visiting nurses they won't touch feet they won't oh feet this is the context that I don't have they they would have to they would have
to go see a podi atrist or a pedicurist at a salon those are the only two options or you can always go to the foot care clinic home office in Greenfield that's a regular that's a regularly running um event the footclair clinic in
Greenfield you know I don't know but that through life path people always say that's that that would that's an option for people they can go into Greenfield and I don't know whether it's a regular clinic i I'll ask but that is I think $65 there's no one helping pay for that
I don't think no there isn't uhuh right cuz that's what happened sorry that's what hap I'm just trying to remember back that's what happened in New Salem the the one or two people that were not happy with switching to a lower maybe more on the scale of pedicurist
um with a little bit of knowledge guys cuz she washes the feet and all of that um if people were unhappy with that they elected to go to Greenfield and pay the $65 difference yeah I think we I think we I mean I
think me I guess um need to find out with Footare by nurses how they would feel about us reducing the number of clients they see so they would only come for maybe two hours every Well I have no Yeah so I
have no idea how they would regard it in terms of I'm assuming we signed some kind of contract with them and wondering um just when the contract is due and what's involved in the contract okay yeah Susan with those topic meetings
we've been having the foot care is still still on the top of the list in terms of people like in kind of a quandry about it we're not the only Oh really way that is struggling with this I don't think I mean because New Salem they've switched
but they were interested in possibly taking people from us if we did switch things up but it's far it's far for people if someone lives way out on you know at the end of Shootsbury and then it's you know
way in New Salem town I guess um you know that's a lot of uh traveling that people kind of feel like I think you had said that like people want to be in their own town yeah yeah yep and I mean
one of the pluses about I mean I would like to be able to continue the foot clinic for at least some of our clients who can afford it because it is superior medical attention that you get saying speaking as somebody who is a um a participant in this i've benefited from
being able to see a foot clinic nurse every other month um and they do sort of general in information about your health if you're if you have questions that you want to ask they don't although they're primarily there for your feet they're
also there for your general health mhm so and I have ser I don't have I have funny toes as Mary Joe knows but other than that um I have pretty healthy feet is this service valuable enough that we
could raise extra money to support it oh what a good question well I'm I'm also that is a good question i'm also We've never done any money raising but it's always a possibility and other SCOAs do raise
money for the their needs they do within our our four towns or other ones i have no idea about our four towns but I read the annual report from last year that came out of age eoec well that was um and definitely that's one of the ways they get money is
and they asked you that on the form are you raising are you seeking uh money and a lot of places a lot of towns get considerably more than $200 from their town government but when I was discussing that with Linda she said
"A lot of the towns are a lot bigger than we are." And I was um talking about that to somebody at the um reception for the um for the new town administrator and they pointed out that we're really the town budget is going to be really
tight this year so that right now is not a good time to go in and ask for more money but she suggested that we go in in the fall when the finance committee is starting to make lay its plans then yeah we have when I talked to Gage she said that we would have to have an
idea of what we needed it for even if it's just our newsletter you know or whatever we would have to have some kind of an idea of what we want to use it for yes so I that might be a good thing to put on the agenda for this
summer so that we start talking about that in advance does that make sense and think about Yeah i mean given given what I know about the shortage of primary care providers and the difficulty of people getting to medical appointments it seems like for people that are older
and medically involved seeing a nurse every couple of weeks could be a real benefit i mean I think I think you could definitely tell that either to the town or to some donors yeah that's right
yeah and that the the l the the difficulty of getting providers of care is also affecting footcare by nurses because they're having pro I think they're underst staffed so they are probably not going
to be too open to the possibility of um negotiating a different settlement with us but they need to know that we're finding it really hard to uh now that they've added the 60 bucks an hour it's a big big
addition for us okay so that's I we are we at a place which where we can kind of leave um the question of the clinic for now we're not deciding anything tonight we're just we're looking at the possibly at the options and I will try to write
this up in the minutes and you all can add if I don't get everything into the minutes okay um Okay so the next question is what about the library the library Maryanne is well the library
request which is for the physical fitness classes the library has requested $1,500 as they did in the fall and let me just say that when I read the annual report for age last for last year
a lot a lot of COAs do provide exercise classes physical fitness classes it's a fairly major offering so although $3,000 a year is a big chunk of our budget of the money that of the
grant but regular exercise is a good way to keep feet healthy and we're paying $5,000 for 16 people's toes every other month and these people however many there are you know it's
three times a week and the classes are full yes and I don't I think we kind of already told Maryanne we we had committed to this did didn't we that we would hopefully do one half in the fall and one half you know do you feel like
we've committed like she's going to be like "Oh I thought we were definitely getting this." Well I think if we can explain our problems she would understand that we don't have a choice i would certainly prefer i mean I I think she expects that we will get
1,500 but if if we thought we really couldn't afford say more than 1,200 I think that would be you know we that would be reasonable i mean I certainly wouldn't want to go low
low but okay so if we're talking about what do other people think about that about the percentage or the amount that we give to uh foot exercise the physical fitness classes again I feel like I should probably abstain from this
and you all know what I think yeah I know but your your opinion is still valuable Janette even though you are one of the people that gets paid very little yes not much not much and that's not why
I do it no probably not why anybody does it but you do think it's it's an important thing to do to support the physical fitness classes i I think it's um even though
it's online it's it's it's a social uh it's uh thing for people and it it's keeping them healthy it's exercise um many people go to all of them um so then you would have to say you
know how many people are being serviced and uh what are they worth um I think when we do all the adding and subtracting um if we supported all of the 1 2 3 4
three things that we know the price for we end up with $670 left over um uh which probably would support a a slightly smaller newsletter we might be
okay supporting everything yeah but the question Jessica raises is what do we do if we're not going to get our next grant portion until well into the fall and the accountant will not let us um basically
borrow on it because it's a known amount and right and pay for events on it even still even if she does let us borrow from it we're still going to be paying that out of the next portion of the grant
so if we rack up $1,000 in those time between the time that we spend the money or or and wait for the grant if we rack up $1,000 it's $1,000 less for our next run yes and that's what we ran into this
time we had a $1,000 debt and we only ended up with $3,000 in the end yes and then we gave half of that for the fitness we gave the money for our dues which is important um the stand for
seniors we had the birthday party we had the pamphlet making so we stuffed a lot into that $3,000 but we're still going to be running short before the next grant even if we
sp i don't know if that just made any sense well okay first it it's really important that we go back on the old deal which we could spend the grant that was coming up and and know to take that we're take and we've got to um be a
little more aware we've got to have we've got to start the year with a budget and know exactly what we're what we're doing right we didn't we didn't do that last summer that's why you got in such a mess Jessica because you came
into a situation which where people didn't really have a firm control of what was going on and we want to avoid that happening again you're absolutely right absolutely and I think if we would like to be able to um
to I mean I think we're going to ultimately be be compelled to spend some money in advertising for in publicizing events for um the digital equity activities
and probably some more throughout the year for the So Shootsberry people to know what's going on in the Den dementia program activities yes although I think
that we're planning to support that um from what I can tell we we are meaning us very No I I think Do you think that the expectation is this that is the four COAs are going to have to spend a lot of funds to to to publicize i I I got the
information we've got that money and we're not necessarily yeah my expect my understanding is that what the COA's the SUA COA's main role will be to publicize events okay okay and
unfortunately we've really got to get people's email addresses because if we could communicate by email with a handful you know with a limited number to people that don't have have seem to use email that would really save us a heck of a lot of money in terms of
publicity it sure would so how do we get that how do we how do we make that a priority that I was hoping that that was going to be one of the issues that the dementia group would be dealing with because when we talked about developing the grant
that was no get finding out who in our community needs these services to me involves um not just finding out people but also how to contact people but okay I I think we're going to have
to um Well that's one reason Janette why I'm hoping that village neighbors will will speak to the Shootsberry volunteers and ask them and and maybe to the volunteers for every for all four
COAs and say you know your your COA needs to have your email so they can communicate with you more less expensively can you give them to us okay that would be wonderful if you could do that okay I think we're going to have to
get the email addresses from the people who come to the foot clinic and um do we does Maryanne and we need to ask that the people who are taking the exercise classes give us their email
addresses um have we ever put anything in the newsletter that we do put out that it would be great if you want to be contacted as an elder in this community who is going to be supported with services uh as a
bonus can we have we ever asked that in the newsletter like you know I I think so I couldn't swear to it but because that might be something we want to put in the newsletter as we're trying because we're really trying to catch people here we can do what we can do
all over the place um but it's it's not like anyone's going to be handing us which is crazy that we don't have that because I I New Salem has it i mean they have people 90 and over 80 and over they have them all delineated
um not only you know who they are but by even by their age and all their information well so I don't know what the big secret is here the you know the we can get we can get and street addresses from the voter roles what we
can't get from the voter roles are email addresses could we get a page on the shoots.org site where people could learn about COA and sign up
well we have a we have a page web page in the shoots.org Because if if people were to be directed to our web page they could put in all of their information every every bit of information that you want
and and could we do ta almost like tableabling at the next town hall or whatever that is a very good idea oh that too yeah yeah um Mary Joe I have no idea how many people look at our web page um if it's probably not many
probably any and there's good information there and we have another problem that we need to deal with at the next meeting because we're going to run out of time for this one um which is we need a replacement web person janice did the
website and um I'm not going to go there yet but we need a replacement person for Susan Gonberg too that's the foot person who does the foot clinic yep yep and that's in May is her last month yeah I
believe so yes i'm just hoping that April is not she was said she was quitting in May and I'm thinking I'm hoping it's after May like through May rather than at Exactly so we not only need someone not only need someone for that
day but also she calls everybody to remind them mhm so I mean it's it's more than just you know going there there's a lot more to it that she does she also checks the telephone to see if anybody's called up
right appointment and um I have yet to develop a good habit of paying attention to the telephone which we have down in um um the senior lounge what's the process of of checking the
telephone it's actually quite easy you just have um you um there's a there's actually a there's a Yeah I have a suite of instructions you call the number you put in a password and you Oh so you don't have to go to you don't have to go to
the telephone no it's all done by your telephone yeah I see i just have a phone phobia me too been a paperwork one even worse
paperwork object to yeah um so actually um Mark the father sent me an email asking what's Shootsbury going to be doing on the dementia activities and I said gee Martha you should come to the organizational meetings i think she gets
the emails she does she has been coming to them so I said "Gee Martha if you would like to help us we really need some help replacing Susan Gonberg." So I'm waiting to see what she replies
she would be perfect she's a nurse she would be perfect in fact she could just check people's feed and somebody else could clip and we could go for the cheaper version i think that's true but I think except she doesn't have her license anymore she can't No and I think
foot care is and and and I I I think she's quite overextended as it is um well she she asked about the foot care or about the dimension no she asked she asked about
Well she's asked well she said to me once if I needed help to let her know okay okay um Okay so uh I'm thinking it's like this but I'm
hoping I'm wrong we really need to know whether Gail will lie our accountant will let us start to pay use the G grant before we get it if that's okay we don't have to worry about expenses after July 1 if she's not going to do
it we probably don't want to spend as much as we're talking about spending by the 1 of July because we might want to save some money for something we might want to save a lot of money we can't send save a lot of money
when when I go to see her um about the reports tomorrow because I know she's in on Thursdays i will definitely ask her if if what's going to happen before we get the next grant in the fall yeah yes if
if we if we run out of money what what what will be the the next steps with her and and and again the foot clinic comes in um in monthly increments it's not like we have to put out $800 tomorrow
right right well what do we Martha's I messaging me right now but I'm not going to look at it okay so um what do we think should we at least
make some suggestions today about what we can pay what we can give to Maryanne for the fitness programs and can we wait for till the next meeting to make a decision about what we're going to give to village
neighbors i think you could certainly on the second one okay the exercise is another story what if we told Maryanne we'll give you a thousand now and we hope to give you
500 next month after we get our grant that's what I was even thinking of something for Village Neighbors but if we just put it off then we could just give them the the amount that they're asking for and you know I I person are there going to be a lot of costs for med
rides or is that all volunteer i'm jumping ahead in the agenda here but because I really want to know this well I don't think we're going to get med rides going right away so I wouldn't much about it but but they paid for um they offered people mileage but Elaine said people need to book the mileage
right right it was not it was not an expensive program um so Maryanne probably would be would accept the thousand and then take 500 later because it's not like she has to pay her her people they she doesn't pay
them by the week um at least Certainly not me um so so I have a question you had said a thousand now and with with the grant coming in and 500 with the next one i'm confused on what you said
um well we're supposed to get our grant the end of this month right so you said a,000 now and then 500 when we get our grant do you mean the next grant well it would still come out of this grant but it just gives us a little bit more money now oh okay i see what you're
saying sorry I was confused by what you said and we'll also have a better sense of what the newsletter is potentially going to cost um how cheaply we can put out a newsletter that could be just back in front well I don't know if it can be back in front of one page because you
have to leave space for the address which is usually a half if it's a trifold if it if we do a trifold then you've got only you know you've got only there's still true a six yeah there's five five out of six we only need one
for the mailing right um I um I'm gonna need to leave soon yeah that's fine um I don't know if there's anything we need to Can you Can you ask Ken Adams about the possibilities of putting out something
cheaper like that a trifold that would be great yeah I'll try to um catch him with that tomorrow if he's not too busy um and if not I'll I'll just do it by email okay thanks a lot Janette is it acceptable with everybody here if I
tell Maryanne that we we'll give her $1,000 now and we'll give her 500 in May jessica we can't we can't give it to her now we can give it to her when we get the grant when Yes for where this the
rest of our grant this year's grant yeah right so we don't know when that's coming in so I wouldn't say now because what if it doesn't come in for four weeks okay so I was expecting we would give her a thousand now out of what we have now oh we don't have it we don't
have the thousand to give her now we don't have That's true i mean I'm I'm just saying what if it doesn't come in right away and what happens with all the federal cutting i mean you said that they you didn't seem like there would be a cut but what happens if they find out
when they're when they're doing the grants that they don't have enough federal funding right then what yes so I think I honestly think until we know exactly how much we're going to get I
think Yeah okay right we can we can we can do a thousand and then you know because we we we don't know about we we know that we overbudgeted for the the foot clinics
anyway um and we didn't we we we didn't we don't know what kind of um donations we're going to get right so I I would say giving her a thousand i wouldn't say now I wouldn't use that word but a thousand when the grant comes in okay i
think we should say to Maryanne um so just in case it's late or whatever let's keep our fingers crossed that it's it's the same amount as it was last time yes Janette yeah I it might be nice uh
or it might be advantageous for us to maybe have conversations with the the couple um uh recipients of funds outlaid and say you know we're we're really having some it's getting a little harder to
honor these these requests that have been uh kind of given in the past with the growth of the foot clinic or with the co with the increased cost of the foot clinic um etc that maybe just kind of being a
little open about it even with the foot clinic people and saying this is really uh really difficult for us i'm definitely going to say that for the foot clinic people you mean like foot care by nurses yeah okay i'm certainly comfortable
talking to Maryanne about it great great and I've als I read wrote Don a long letter Don Stone the treasurer yeah saying that you know we were just been having financial problems and we don't know we were unsure
right right i mean I I still think that's a really worthwhile expenditure because we get a lot of benefit from it and we're also two of the biggest towns with the most population and the mo and really a lot
of members who get Yeah and and Don sent an interesting Oh geez but I wish he sent it online send it in an envelope but a list of um volunteers members and we are at the top in terms of number of of people involved as
volunteers and number of people involved in service getting absolutely absolutely we're you know we do a lot of lot of taken a lot and you know I do this town the membership and I do the volunteer stuff um and it's only
increasing and we use it you know when you look at our numbers too i mean the our our people we had the biggest um in a very very slow period Shootsbury had the highest um usage of of things so you know there is
absolutely uh benefit to it so if we could squeak down the foot clinic a little bit somehow by just making a very strong suggestion unless you can really you know you can come to us and say you have nothing like they do in lever um and if we can squeak down the newsletter
and if we can get all these emails so that it all becomes a lot cheaper to do yeah we have I think 11 members of village neighbors who and they don't get it every month because we they we get they get their news our newsletter by um
they have to get it by regular mail because they don't have any um digital way okay so I'm going to head out um Okay you should just know what we're proposing Jessica about Janice
oh oh oh um I had mentioned to um to uh Susan that um we should probably with all the work that um Gina's put into the Council on Aging her newsletter our grammar all that um I think it'd be nice to make her an honorary member of the
the COA and we can do that in in the newsletter as well that makes sense we have an established process for doing that which is we make a decision that we want to do it we send it to the select
board the select board approves it okay so this is for Janice yes in perpetuity kind of she's forever more an honorary membership we have three honorary
memberships right now okay marilyn Tibbitz um Jessica I'm sorry i didn't hear what you said your grandmother is one of the honorary members and I'm blanking on her name mariel Gross yes and and David Dan
I would imagine sorry david Dan no we never made David Dan an honorary member we ought to think about doing that and but um the other David um Rebecca's husband Wheeler yes wheeler and but the the
third person now is your is your is Melissa yeah yep melissa make please so maybe we um Ouch maybe we uh if we're
doing it maybe we do a few yeah yeah i I'm certainly in favor of that well but wait a second we we also have Linda who ran this pretty much single-handed for a long time and Joanne who helped her so I don't know if we
want to make we have to think about that i think we'll talk about that more the next time does that sound reasonable that does that does all right i must um I must tata okay thank you very much mary Joe thank you so much for me for
joining to be with all of us all right be in touch okay um I suspect that when we lose our quorum we ought to end our meeting but is there anything else we ought to talk about that needs to be talked about
tonight i don't think so we can we can put off the other things just look real quick at I don't even know what was left yeah restarting and possibly expanding med rides we can't take this that on now
we can maybe talk about it in the summer uh oh I know important unanticipated business beside Janice um do we want to ask the select board to reduce the membership to five so that we in from
seven so that we will have a quorum with three i'm thinking we do i think it's smart unless we have people that are interested and I don't see anybody knocking at our door no and you know I'd
like to reach out i've said this before i'd like to get some men members um but I think could also we could probably have associates have a what official status or just encourage people to help us without
necessarily becoming members right but I will ask kind of like kind of like um what's her name the one that does the lunchon oh god well Susan she talking about the one that was setting up the
one that was set Huh sally sally sally yeah she And same with Sue Gonberg they had active roles but they didn't have to um they didn't come to meetings or you know but they still had active volunteering roles yep they both were
actually formally members i think but yeah not currently members though yeah i think definitely we could have people with who have one specific task or two specific tasks that they do and don't don't have to be members don't
have to come to meetings that would appeal to lots of people right okay thank you all very much thank you i think we've had an active day and thank you Mary Joe again for joining us happy to you have you officially met Jessica
um I've seen her on Zoom now a couple times she She came a couple times ago but we didn't have time we had to leave I think because someone else had a meeting right after ours so we got kicked out yeah so I'm Jessica nice to
meet you nice to meet you sometime maybe you'll have chance to talk my my my time is is very valuable but that would be really Do you go to the to the luncheons or No I went last time did you well I hopefully I'll get to go
someday soon i was able to go when they first started them and then I've just been so busy well you can't do everything Jessica i know but I try yeah so we had I think 18 people at the
last community lunch oh wow that's a good size yeah it is it is we had to have two separate tables yeah good and we have another guy coming so David Moer is not the only one there representing the other gender or a an
other gender yeah that's nice there was that when we first started it um Graham Septton was there oh and there was there was there was Yeah a couple men okay well some of the men who used to come
well are no longer among the living but um Right right i think we actually talked somebody suggested we ask Graham if he wants to be a member and it because he's a computer person it would be great to have him
giving the digital piece right he would know what he's talking about because I'm clueless when you come I when when when David was here talking to us I'm like huh you know or Mike sorry not David Mike Michael Dara
I half of what he was saying I'm like I I couldn't wrap my mind around you know so so I have a question about about the website because to me that's a really great way to collect information about people um for example if you put
something in the newsletter um you could refer them to the website you know and otherwise if you put something in the newsletter there's no way for people to really contact you or give you information you know um but who is in charge of like who is your web
master it was Janice oh so she she designed the website and set everything up yes she did wow and um she also put out the newsletter huh she edited the newsletter but she
asked others to write to contribute to it so you need somebody with those skills yeah it doesn't they don't have to be writing because you know and I think if we're talking about a smaller newsletter the writing burden is not so great
because you're writing a number of paragraphs which is different from the longer things we wrote in the past and you could you know you can ask people who aren't members to help with that but yeah we need somebody with editing skills the ability to put together a
newsletter and um web master newsletter and somebody to take over Susan Gonberg's job which I'm thinking of um pos of dividing it sharing it either taking two people having two
hours a Wednesday or giving one person one month's Wednesday sharing with another person who has the Wednesdays so but yeah and there are just the four of us right now unless we reach out to people who aren't members of the
committee is it easy for you to use Next Door or there like issues around that being a town um no i mean we thought there were issues but we've gotten information from both Melissa Makepiece and also Gail um
by Shacker and yes if we're careful how about how we present it we don't present it as coming from a town committee we can use um next door which we're going to do and we But town announce does not have a big readership
oh town announce does not do you get town announce i do okay i thought that was the main way that the town communicated with large numbers of people it is but it communicates but not to large numbers of
people okay yeah i asked Gail about that because she's you know the head honcho of town announces huh i don't think it's just maybe I don't think it's a third of the town that gets announced
oh that surprises me interesting yeah because I was thinking if you want to add members to the council it would make sense to ask for specifically what you needed you know so that people with those skills might come
forward it's easier for people to volunteer if they have an idea that they could be essential okay um good point and it would be I certainly possible to advertise for somebody who's willing to be our web
master and for somebody to who's willing to edit a newsletter a fair a simple newsletter yeah that we in the past put out twice a year and I could do that on town announce and next door
if we're looking like like you said if we're looking for specific kind of volunteers like Mary Joe was just saying we could also put a flyer up um at our lunchon too or you know leave a flyer on the table um saying we need volunteers
with this background or um something yes that's a good You have a good You have a good point that people are going to especially if they love what they do you know they can implement it and volunteer at the same time that makes
perfect sense [Music] if we're looking for a replacement for Susan Gonberg I don't know what skills we would be advertising for unfortunately because it's mostly sitting around yeah that that that's harder but for like for for like the web
the website and the newsletter that's easier i don't know anybody else want to volunteer to do those i'm sorry I can't to do or do the do the the foot the foot clinics um talk about
I was thinking I know you can't Jessica so I wasn't suggesting that oh sorry writing up a piece for town and oh uh next door next door could be longer i feel town announce needs to be reasonably short but and I would be
willing to do town announce okay well I could do something for next door oh thank you I can uh I can run by you what I'm thinking about doing for town announce yeah and then if we have a little bit more space
on next door I'll embellish a little bit and run it by you okay sounds good jessica you want to be on the run by you want us to show you let you know what we're thinking about i trust you guys okay
just say as we trust you to deal with Gail Weiss well that that's kind of tricky sometimes yes I have that impression so more power well the the the reports
aren't the reports aren't as straightforward she might think they are but I don't think they are at all you know but she uses them all the time so when I'm looking at it it's a bunch of numbers and you know it's very overwhelming but she can look at it and run down everything like as quick as P
you know as as possible and so we'll see how it goes but um hopefully she allows us to use the use the money um before our second our the first part of next year's grant yes definitely you know and
in terms of um the um the uh age sent out which is ea now age I guess they're calling themselves EO age um they sent out some a mailing
yesterday the day before and with a couple of documents and one of them was um a a flyer about how much government that the elder services depend on government funds but it was a very
general statement and nothing said about what we're going to suffer just you realize how much there's out there that could be cut back cut back really hurt people but it isn't I don't didn't think that I didn't try sending you the
brochure which I would be happy to or the flyer which I'd be happy to do if you want to see it but it's it's very general not very specific right we don't I mean when I asked um Adam Frank he said that they did not know if they were
going to be hit by um you know they're having their budgets cut the grants cut federal that's how it has been you don't know a sudden it happens So yeah I'm worried about that this time
too um especially if we I'm glad that we didn't move forward with um um the amount for for village neighbors you know without knowing what the grant's going to be i mean I know it's really good for our
town but at the end of the day that's a lot of money you know yeah so yeah yeah it's Yeah I agree it's those three
big items they are expensive i think I think maybe when we do our when we when we look at possibly requesting money from the town for more um for um a higher budget um I think we
should definitely look at at maybe pinning the newsletters onto the town budget um so that that money is always there and then moving forward
um that would wouldn't be have to be with the grant budget you know what I'm saying yes I am that's a good idea yeah I think I think that's a really good idea too because then we're not cuz right now if we if we if we do the foot
care the library visiting um visit Yeah visiting nurses sorry village neighbors um that she said that only leaves us $600 for our newsletter so that's only going to be one mailing so if we budget
out two mailings asking the town for that little bit of extra money then I think that would benefit us if we since we have to have um some kind of idea of what we're going to spend the money on to get the money
yes and I I would like to have some money available for other purp yes absolutely yeah I like the idea of getting a little bit more support from the town especially if there's not going to be as
much in available from grants yeah I I um I think I sent you all but I pro I need to send to Mary Joe the um the EOEA uh annual report for fiscal year
24 because that was that's filled with information about what COA spend their money on and where COAs get their money and I think that would be helpful information to take to uh the finance committee absolutely
yeah well and if it's really true that um how much what percentage of our population is older well we send the newsletter to half the households in Shootsbury okay so I mean if if we're serving half of the
households in Shootberry that's that's a pretty big area of service seems like you only get 200 bucks from the town for it yeah i mean I I think that you know definitely I mean part of the
reason why I had some idea that there were a lot of older people in Shootberry but I did not know it was half and you know part of the reason I got on was because I thought wow this is a lot this provides a lot of service there's a lot of potential here
so yeah seems like seems like given the number of of people that we serve we really deserve a little bit more funds and and and we're serving people who are on fixed incomes but there's another reason why mhm you
know Oh yeah it's expensive to live here and if they're on a fixed income they're Yeah they're budgeting their money and foot care may not be in the budget to pay $65 or so yeah I know
so I said we do we knew worked out somebody's although that's a dog at your place right somebody's got a dog barking it's not a dog here i think it's Mary Joe because she just muted her mic
okay i know Mary Joe has a talkative dog uh let's see okay okay i will I will be sure that Do you want me to send you another copy of the annual report for you to look at Jessica would be easier to if I just
send it to you again yes please okay okay I will do that i think we've accomplished a lot today ladies but I think it's probably it's 7:01 we should definitely Yep i got to go to work yep
okay all right ladies i'll email I'll email everybody after I uh talk to Gail okay about what exactly we have left um and if those donations were added and I may just get I may get a list of the
donations from um from before too because Martha was depositing them and not telling me and there was a lot of confusion there so so yeah that's important information
and good luck getting it out of Gail and good luck find out about whether she'll let us charge in use our budget in advance our grant in advance yes I will try my hardest yeah I know you all right thank you buddy have a nice evening you
as well thanks bye five