Hey, fancy seeing you again. Hi, how are you? I'm good. Am I the only one here? So far. Oh my god. I'm sure that'll change. Yeah. Hello, hi. Hey. How you doing? Good, how are you? Yo. Hanging in so far. Sounds good. Will I hopefully will be seeing you Saturday? Yes. You have to see our beautiful wares. Yeah. We have quite the collection. I'll be adding to it as well. I haven't brought my own stuff. No, we close donations at May 31st. No more. Do we have things to hang everything up? Do we? We have some stuff. We also have a tent and there are some clothes hangers. So we are going to also hang from the tent. You can see the scarves and yeah, we just have tons of stuff. All kinds of stuff. I had lunch today with a senior and she told me she went into her closet and cleaned out all kinds of stuff and brought it down. Oh joy. Good. Yeah. It's always interesting the things people have.  So we could all do some early holiday shopping Saturday? Yes, you could. Yeah, we actually have some really beautiful, I don't know if they're all silk. They might some be satin, but scarves we have a really nice collection of. There's obviously a ton of costume jewelry, but there are some other really nice pieces, especially bracelets, if that's what you're looking for. And then a pretty varied selection of handbags and ties and wall actually some really nice wallets, like all leather wallets. Oh yeah. Okay, so you do have ties. Do you need more ties? They're, I don't think they're going to be a big seller. I don't think a lot of people are wearing them as much anymore, but we saved ones that were like really funky. So if you have some eclectic ties, we could use those. That'd be good. I think we have some that are like dual-purpose tie and bib because they're so dark. Yep, yep. I saw a few of those. Maybe we could take those back to the center. Original Ralph Lorenz, I think. Not wide. So Karen, are you enjoying having the students all gone from campus? You know, it doesn't really matter in my day-to-day life at work, but it's weird actually. It's so quiet now. I mean, just, I mean, I know it's always like this in the summer, just forget from year to year what it's like, but it's quiet right now. But yeah, so I guess I do enjoy it.  You know, there's a certain energy there when they're on campus, but it's nice to be able to like walk through campus and not have to kind of fight your way. No. Hayley, did you hear from anyone who said that they wouldn't be able to attend tonight? Okay. Christine, are you there? I am absolutely here. No. Excellent. Excellent. Yep. Welcome, because I think you gave us quorum, right? We have a quorum. Hi, Ann. Wow, it says it cannot start video. Please select another video camera and settings. I'm going to try logging off and logging in again. Okay. Okay. Okay. And then otherwise, I think we're just missing two, right? Yeah. Excellent. Success, Christina. Oh, nice. We have two dentists. What? Oh yeah, your name is appearing twice. Really? Yeah. Do you see a few? We have two dentists at this point. Yeah. I can only see one. Do gallery view. Do you see it now if you change it to gallery? I've just changed it to...  I wonder. A phantom. I can't do anything to get rid of it. No, why it's there? You don't have it up in like another device. Yeah, I totally can't do that. I don't think so, but let me make it really sure. Does it matter? No, it's more just like a quirky little thing. I've never seen that happen before. Let me... It's seven after, so I'm going to get us started because I think we have a pretty cool agenda. Okay, I'm going to call the meeting of the council on aging, June 5th to order. We'll start off with our roll call. Ann, Terry, are folks muted? I'm not hearing anything. Are people saying anything? Hearing. Yeah, okay. Thank you. Chad, I think I haven't seen him. All right. Here. Chad? No, he's not here. No. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I didn't think so. Dennis? Right here. Kristina? I'm here. Karen? Here. In Jacqueline, I don't see her. Okay. Pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12th, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, general law, Chapter 30A, Section 18. This meeting of the council on aging is being conducted via remote participation. This meeting is also being recorded. I want to welcome everybody to the meeting and first off, thank the vice chair for running last month's meeting. So glad that went well. I wanted to say this is a special meeting in that to the best of my knowledge, we are losing two members. Karen and Anne will be departing. And so just wanted to, before we delved into everything, wanted to take a moment to say thank you both so much for your time and attention and dedication to helping us. And we really appreciate all your efforts on behalf of the seniors in town. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you to all of you. Thank you, Anne. And thank you, Karen. Thank you, girls. We're fortunate to have you. All right. We're going to move on to old business and that's the selection of a new secretary. We know that Terry is eager to pass the pen or the keyboard on to somebody. And we're hoping all of you gave it ample thought the past month and you're just chomping at the bit to throw your hand up to say, yes, I'll do it. So who would like to be the new secretary? Cricket. You all hit the mute button on me. My suggestion, if we can. Can everybody raise your hand at once? I know. Exciting for the job. Yeah. I think probably the fairest thing to do would be to take turns with this. So it isn't an undue burden on any one person unless somebody has to change their heart and wants to take it on on a regular basis. Anyone have any other suggestions or ideas as to how best to handle this? We can beg our new members to please, please be the secretary as we'll have a full board in June in July. Excuse me. And when are they coming? July. They were approved at the last town council meeting. Okay. I'll wait till July. Okay. Members, were any members of the present council there to interview them? They usually that falls to the council chair who was not able to be at those meetings. But it is the discretion of the town manager to ultimately choose and appoint individuals to any body in town. I did not see it in the minutes, but I made a very strong suggestion that there be in addition to the chairperson, at least one other member of the council there at the interview process and the decision making process. And I want it recorded in the minutes that I'm very disturbed that no member of this committee was present. I think that's probably not the way to fill. I'm going to finish saying this because I wanted in the minutes so badly. This so far in my experience, my limited experience with the committee has not been an active working committee. And if you are going to have active new members, it's very important that somebody be there. So if the chairman couldn't be there, I think someone else should have been asked. Well, I can step in and kind of fill that question. And so ultimately the council on aging is supposed to support the director of the senior center and the senior center itself. And so I was there asking questions like, are you able to make a volunteering commitment to the senior center when you become a council on aging member? It's really important to me that we have people who are directly connected with the senior center. You know, I think Jean and I both had discussed what we were looking for in an ideal candidate. And like I said, ultimately it falls to the town itself to select and appoint members. So I can definitely understand, you know, where you're coming from with that.  And Anne, I will just apologize. I had every intent in joining and circumstances were such that I was, I couldn't make it.  It's just generally directed that someone else should have been called. If Dennis then couldn't make it. Couldn't make it. Some other member of the council should have been there to represent the council. Yeah, I am very last minute. So it didn't allow for anybody else to. I agree. I agree with you, Anne. I'm sorry to interrupt you. I had three members of the council in my interview along with the town manager. And I don't know Haley was there, but definitely the town manager was there. And I had two meetings. There was one sort of like an orientation. So yeah, there should be, there should be someone who can represent the council. I didn't know about it or either I didn't read my email. I have no clue. A lot of times I don't have a clue. Yeah. And that was probably because at that time, I don't know that you had a director of the senior center. It might have been when Mary Beth had left. And at that point, there were three members of like a leadership triad. So that's probably why you saw all three of them. So may I ask a question at this point? And this really is a question of the structure of not only this committee, but other committees, are all committees basically made up of people that have been appointed by the town manager and the town employee representative to the committee? I can't speak for other town employees because I, but my guess is that if it's an advisory committee, which the COA is, then yeah, likely there would be some input from the employee standpoint. But Paul is the ultimate person who puts forth names for consideration. And I did misspeak a little bit. So it's the town council who ultimately appoints that individual. But Paul is the one who makes the recommendation. That's how the town government is set up. There's an application online and then individuals apply. And then it goes first to the town manager's office. And then after that, it gets recommended to whatever committee they want to join. I see. So, so in essence, the committees are made up of people that the town manager feels will fulfill his agenda. I don't know if you could say that, but it's definitely his role. I know, but I'm just saying that it's within his jurisdiction to ultimately be the one who recommends those names. That is a part of his job. But the website is accessible to everyone. And nobody twisted my arm. I didn't even know the town manager other than seeing him at the corner over here at the farmer's market. He does support community events. He shows up. So I saw him several times. However, he didn't twist my arm or ask me join so I could do his bidding for him. I basically was asked by a member on this committee, Jacqueline, as an African American woman to join this council. And I thought about it and thought about it. And then I went online and filled out the application. And then months later, I was contacted. So it isn't like I think the perception. There is a perception, but that's not the reality. Yeah. And there is a residents advisory committee who is also part of every town committee interview. So it's not like it's just myself and Paul. There's a neutral third party there who also makes recommendations. I'm going to move us off of this because. Chad has his hand up. Sorry, Chad. I didn't. Oh, okay. Thank you. Yeah, there is a double screening by the town manager. He selects the person to be interviewed. Then after it goes through the interview process, he recommends it to the town council. So he's kind of like a double screen in there. All right. We're going to move on to new business. And Haley, if you could throw. Yes, very much like among the many things that we've talked about recently is kind of the focus and we were headed. And so one of the tools that I think will go a long way in helping us with our direction is having an annual calendar. And so I took the liberty of starting a draft of one that I wanted to share and get your input and ideas about what else should be added to this. So the initial things included on here are the major events at the senior center in April, the big open house, which I think has been a huge hit. And I think that's happened two years, Haley, right? Since you started. And then in June, the community safety day, which obviously is coming up in a couple of weeks that was held, I think for the first time last year, right? Yes. Yeah, that was, yeah, I'm proud to say that was the first time. We hoped on it in the town. Yeah, yeah. And so it'll be bigger and better this year. And then moving into the fall, September, the Amherst, the, I think it's the chamber or bid does the block party in downtown. And the, we had a table there, right? Yeah. And then in October, a couple of other events that we participate in the volunteer fair and the fire department open house. I do expect folks will have other ideas of events or new things will be added. But among the things that I just listed seasonally, because they aren't tied to a specific date per se, but I think it's important for us to have on our calendar is AARP offers a grant and made mention of it. I discovered it very late this past winter, like a week or two prior to the deadline. So I want to get that on our calendar because I think it would behoove us to identify a project and then complete the grant application, see if we couldn't secure money to make some improvement. That application is due in the early winter. So I thought, to me, it makes sense that we start talking about it in the fall to identify what we might want to put forth as our project. Likewise, on our annual calendar, we should have member recruitment. And I just listed that in the spring since we Christina has her hand up. Through that, I need for that to be made bigger. Yes, I would agree. I'm struggling myself trying to read it. Not the front, but just in word, down at the bottom, right? There is a scale. And if you move it, it will make things larger. Tell me one. Is this good? Yes, that's good. Oh, awesome. I didn't know about it. Okay. So member recruitment should be something I think we should have on our calendar respring. Something else that I would like to propose that we put on an annual calendar. And that's a program review that at some point, I don't know when the right time is, but that we kind of sit back and take a look at all the various programs offered throughout the year at the senior center and kind of do some analysis about, not only how they went, but who they served, because I think we should be taking a look at if we're meeting every, all of our different populations that we're meeting their needs in terms of what we offer that we have not only the exercise, the arts, the cultural and so forth and so on. So to do a review. And then a couple of other things that I think would be helpful for us is to, we recently, Dennis Haley and I and a new member attended the MCOA, Massachusetts Council on Aging Conference. Yeah, training, training on how to be a COA board. Yeah.  And the idea came up that it would be helpful. We obviously share a lot of things in common, even though, you know, we're firm amherst and they're from Hadley or Ludlow, right? We're all kind of trying to do the same sorts of things. So that it would be helpful for us to get together with them to, you know, not only share ideas, but frustrations and maybe strategize. Maybe there's some things that we can work together on. So that to do that on a regular basis, what that means, I'm not sure whether that would be once a semester or what, but that was one idea. And then another is to visit other senior centers around, because I think there's a lot we can, we can learn by going into other senior centers, particularly those that are new or recently renovated in terms of kind of where we would like to go in the future with our senior center. So thoughts on the idea of a calendar for, for COA, people like that idea? Yeah, makes a lot of sense to me that we would have something, this group of activities that would need to be done on a pretty regular basis. Since it is our responsibility to advise the head of the senior center, then some look or analysis at the programs that are held there is probably a nice idea. So especially for program review. Okay, Karen? Yeah, I think when it comes to grant writing, the one thing I would advise you is it takes, for those of you who haven't written a grant proposal, it takes way, way longer than you think it's going to take. So if the deadline is winter, I would start as soon as the guidelines come out to start, it just takes, you know, grant writing, you can really just, you really need a long, a long period of time in you to be able to go back to it, especially if there's more than one person involved, such as, but I think the calendar is a great idea. I wonder where it's going to live, is it going to live as a working document or I don't know, good question. That is a good question. So something else, I'm just going to make mention of it now. I don't know if this is the right time or not, but I was reading old minutes of COA and free COVID, something they did, which I would like to suggest that we might want to try to do, is for the minutes, they also listed out other documents that were handed out or discussed and I think that would, I would find that useful because I go back, I keep all my agendas to go back to see, oh, it was in May when we first started talking about the calendar or whatnot. So I wanted to throw that out as an idea. Would others find that helpful as well to list documents that are distributed and discussed at a particular meeting? Yes. Okay, all right. In terms of where the calendar should live, that's a fine and dnd question. I don't know, is there a where, where could it live? I guess, I would suggest Google Docs. I'm sorry. That's okay. I would suggest Google Docs. If everyone here has a Gmail, I'm not assuming that you do, but Google Docs is probably the most accessible for sharing documents. And is that, I don't know what the town, if there are town rules on this? That I don't know because we all have Microsoft, but I was going to say maybe that's something that we could just pull up briefly at each meeting and kind of look at, okay, if it's June and we know that the volunteer first coming up in October, then we should probably start orchestrating that in August or so. Or like Karen said, it takes a long time to write grants. You want to edit, re-edit ad nauseam. So it might be helpful to just maybe at each meeting talk about where we are now and what's coming up three, six, 12 months from now. Okay. But otherwise, I really like Google Docs, but I don't know how the town feels about it. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I don't, I've never used Google Docs, but I'm sure I can learn. Right. Well, the thing is, if I may say so, if I may say so, Google Docs would probably not be as secure as the internal Microsoft OneDrive, but not everyone has Microsoft because it is very expensive. The city can have it for their employees, but in general, it's not cost-efficient for an individual to use, but Google Docs is free. And it has to reside on someone's account. And that would be yours, Jean. If you have a Gmail, I'd be happy to work with you on how to use it. It's not as difficult as it may sound. It's very similar to uploading a document to an email and downloading a document. It's on your, it's not on a computer that's going to be used by the public. It's on your private computer and that keeps it secure because only you can log into your account. Okay. That's a good idea. Plus, I can get, I've worked with other people who have Google Docs and you can share a link with me so that I can access it even though I'm using Microsoft. So maybe if you, like Christina, saying if you had that, you could be the keeper of the calendar. Okay. Okay. I probably will need some tutorial, but I'll give it the old college try. So, all right. Google Docs on my list. Okay. So we will, as a matter of course, bring up the calendar at our meetings and I feel like this annual calendar is also going to help us plan ahead for agendas in terms of what we, topics we need to be discussing. So, okay. Anything else on the calendar? Okay. Thank you, Hailey, for opening that up on the screen. Going to turn things over to you for the director's update. Yeah. So hopefully you all got the spreadsheet that I sent around, but I may as well share my screen again in case people didn't get it. So, I've added service days because I feel like that gives a nice perspective for the average daily count. You know, if it's February, we're not going to have 22 days of service. It's going to probably be something like 19 or 18 with all the holidays and snow days. Can you make this bigger, Hailey? Bigger, yes. Trying to think of how I want to do it. There's a slide at the bottom right. I used hotkeys. Or you can go to view. You can go to view. True. Or you can do control plus and it'll get bigger too. But those are all financers. But yeah, so I added the day so that we can get a little bit more perspective. I thought I was, you know, we dipped in May, but there were certain days like UMass graduation where no one was really coming to the senior center because they couldn't get downtown to park anywhere. And in the summertime, if it's hot, that turns people off sometimes. So it's not atypical to see a dip in service when we hit the high heat months.  It's still kind of, it's not too far down that we should be worried that people aren't coming to the senior center. Volunteer hours, you know, again, if you look at the difference between February and March, we're tracking more consistently. And that was certainly the case in May where we logged over 400 hours of volunteer service. So the past three months have steadily been, we're holding at our volunteer numbers. People are checking in when they're supposed to, which is really nice to see because the service numbers were down, you know, all the programs slightly down, you know, but we're still lots of exercise, incredibly popular. The social events, we're adding more and more of those, you know, we are building an annual calendar. I think before I came on board, you know, obviously we had the pandemic, so I don't know what it looked like before COVID, but we weren't doing any annual events that I knew about. So, you know, now we have two or three that we can consider mainstays in our repertoire. The clinics that we do, those are in reference to the foot care clinics. So we have a registered nurse who provides foot care service on a day and a half. That's the third Thursday of the month and the third Friday for half a day. And then we also have a licensed manicurist who come in and address, you know, people who just have general concerns, you know, if someone has diabetes, say the registered nurse is a better option for them. But if you just need your toenails clipped and polished up, it's a lot less expensive to use our manicurist service. And meals were a little behind on logging, but I would certainly expect them to be pretty consistent over the last two months. I don't, there hasn't been a dip in service. And the new thing that you'll see is that now we are tracking our rides because our silver shuttle is active. We have a fantastic driver and a fantastic scheduler for the rides. So I think it's really interesting when you look at what we did in May, because we served only eight people, but those eight people use the van 24 times. So we're getting a lot of repeat customers, which I think, and this should be no surprise to anyone who's on this meeting. If you're not driving anymore, you need the van to go everywhere. So of course, we're going to see more service from what is a smaller concentration of people, because they don't have other means. It's also less costly than the PVTA. Granted, we're not doing five days a week service, but it is clearly meeting a need for people in the community. One thing, I'm not at all surprised, for example, that trips to and from the senior center and medical appointments are the most common things that we're doing. We have a woman who she does dialysis treatments, and this is how she gets to her appointments, because there was no other way for her and her walker to get to where she needed to be. Later this month, we're also going to be piloting, and I say piloting because we didn't open this up to the public. We kind of chose people who we know are having a really tough time right now, and we're going to go up to Hampton Beach and take a two-day trips with people just so we can see, you know, how does the van handle on the highway? Because we don't know, we've never driven it that far, you know, and kind of look at what are our protocols, you know, what kind of staff support do we need. So we're doing two little pilot trips coming up, and then after that we'll do regular, you know, free trips to say like the Hitchcock Center, things around the Valley. The Friends of the Amherst Senior Center are really wonderful in doing like the bus tours and the flights, but this is an option for people for whom cost is a factor. We want to make sure they have an ability to go into the community. You have a question, Ann? Yeah, how do these individuals, not the ones that are using it, but other individuals, how do they access or let you know that they have a need?  And then certainly, you know, I took a call at the senior center the other day, someone wanted an appointment with our computer tutor, and she said, well, I have a walker, so I can't, even though she lived right behind the senior center, she couldn't walk. And I said, if you make your appointment on a Monday, a Wednesday or Friday, we'll pick you up and we'll bring you to the senior center. So if there's ever a chance where we can shoehorn that in, when we're on the phone with someone, we certainly do. And word of mouth will help that. So it's been slow to grow, but that's kind of what we've been doing all along, you know, even something like the cafe where we average a pretty high attendance. Now it started with only like five people coming for the first two months. So people can call the senior center if they have, if they've read about it, but forgotten how to. Yes, they can call. We have a special number that's just for our transit program. So we will transfer that person if the receptionist is there. She'll book them the ride. And if she's not, you know, we'll take a message and follow up with that person. And we have done a couple of same day rides, which other places aren't always able to do. And then that, yeah. And then, I mean, that's, that's pretty much it. I think once we start the next fiscal year, I might fine tune these statistics even a little bit more. You know, because when we say exercise, well, what kind of exercise programs are we doing? A lot of people think it's just, oh, I'm doing chair yoga, but we have a belly dancing class, which is gaining a lot of steam. We have a more, more aerobic, intense class on Wednesdays. That is something, you know, if you don't want to, if you're ready and able to take your exercise to the next step, it's a good fit for you, you know, in the social events, whether that's a cafe or if it's community safety day, you know, I want to be able to differentiate between all of that. But, and if people have, you know, other things that you're curious about, you know, what do we do in a given month? Just let me know and I can pull numbers for you if there's things you want to see added. Does anyone have any other questions on that? Yeah, what is the social, what is it called? The social events. Yes. So those are social events. So that's something like the cafe or, you know, today we did a music program where we had some musicians who brought in like a range of instruments and people like to like fiddle with them.  So anything we do that's not, you know, that you might just consider for socialization, that's what we include in social events. So whether it's an ice cream social, whether it's a music class, the painting class, those are all those types of things. Do you need to break those out for any reporting requirements? Not for the reporting requirements, but I did just say that I want to be a little bit more specific in the next fiscal year. So we'll be kind of measuring those in more fine tuned detail. I wonder if it would be nice to going forward break out the memory cafe. Yeah, like that's something I really want to do because we are getting a really high attendance. And again, that is, you know, when we talk about what do our seniors want, you know, what are people gravitating towards. We have several individuals who are seniors and homeless. We have people of different ethnic backgrounds. We have people for whom English is not their first language. We have people with memory issues, people with developmental disabilities. You know, we really span the gamut on people. And the one thing they come for is coffee and conversation. And it gives them the ability to talk and be social. And I think sometimes we take for granted being social. But I just saw another statistic where if you're socially active, it reduces your risk of developing dementia by like 40 or 50 percent. So if you're an older adult and you're socially isolated, you are at an extremely high risk of developing dementia like symptoms than if you are socially active and engaged in some kind of activity. And you had another question. Yes, at one time you were thinking of having chess tables or something like that. I think you had a very good idea in having some things available where people would socialize while they're doing something else that they enjoy. And it isn't necessarily within the confines of a registered class thing. It's a drop in any time you have time. Is that going any further? So that was my idea. We are renovating the patio space out by room 101. So they're going to redo the ground and put in an awning. I had wanted chess tables for that, but it's not in the town's grant request. So I would have to work with the friends group to raise money to do that and try to fit it into whatever the town has planned. You know, that grant was put forward from the planning department. And, you know, I'm really glad that they did it. Don't get me wrong. But it wasn't, you know, I didn't see all the details. I just told them, you know, yeah, we really need an outdoor space by the bank center because people ask me all the time for it. So it's, I guess, to be quick in my answer, it's cost. It's cost. And can we raise the money to do that and make it a priority? And how about programs like... I know you showed me around the space at some point, but programs like where people could bring their knitting or their quilting or there's something, you know, something that they're doing with their hands where they can socialize at the same time. I'm thinking of something that isn't necessarily a class. I could drop an hour. Yeah, I think I'm totally... Drop in and meet friends and do whatever it is you like to do. I am totally open to that. We just don't have anyone to lead it. And I don't want it to be, you know, we want to have, at least in the very beginning, somebody who can be in the room and I don't, I can ask my staff. I don't know if they know how to knit. But yeah, those are things that I want to do, but it requires having a little extra hands. But I can tell you, starting in May, we did feature a local artist and in July, we're going to be featuring some beautiful quilt work by another local artist in the lounge area. So it is a nice, and we do a reception every time there's a new artist. So we have been kind of featuring people in the community who are very crafty and we're taking more names for other months because the idea is to have it much like in Northampton and Hadley where one month we feature a different artist. Thank you. That's all I have for stats. I can give a very brief update. I think next month, once we reconvene as a full board, we'll want to do, look at that agent dimension friendly action plan and identify what are our priorities. One of the things that I love about that plan is that we're already doing several things, like the memory cafe, for example. So not like we have to start from the ground up. We can definitely roll and build on some of the things that the senior center is already doing. And then upcoming events. So we will be doing two big things, well, three big things. One just happened. We had our very first rainbow coffee hour this past Tuesday. Yeah, it was really well attended. I think we had about 15 people. We had Pam Young from the DEI office. We had Liz from Amherst Neighbors and a really great group. And it was a lot of fun to see that come to fruition because Mark Barrett and I have been working on that for, he's been doing a lot of legwork, but for a long time and getting that ready and having that be a real program. On Thursday, June 22nd, we will be showing the Jen Silent movie. Doors open at 5.30 at the Bang Center. We're going to show the movie at 6. And it's a tear-jerker. I'll be really honest. It is an incredibly powerful look at the lives of four LGBT seniors in the Boston area and the different challenges that they have to face. One of the things that struck out to me is you have a couple where he's caring for his partner who has Parkinson's and it's getting worse. And how do you live? How do you acknowledge not only that that person was your partner, at a time when that was not okay, but then how do you try to have your own life on top of that? Because if this person's in skilled nursing facility and you're not, you are entitled to have your own life, but that's a really difficult thing to try to manage. The film also features a woman who is trans and she has emphysema. And because she came out, her whole family deserted her, children, everything. And how do you navigate all the difficulties of daily life when you're totally isolated and you have to make connections pretty much from scratch. So it's a really powerful film. It's a film that Helen had done pre-pandemic at one point and it's very important to Al and Mark is also working on it. So I would definitely encourage anyone to come bring tissues, but it'll be a really nice watch. And then after the movie, we're going to have just a discussion to kind of debrief. And if people want to share their thoughts and their feelings, there'll be an opportunity to do so. And then on the opposite end of the spectrum, we'll have Community Safety Day on Saturday, June 24th. And that's at the Mill River Recreation Area. We launched it last year and it's a little bit bigger and I'm glad that it keeps growing. And the purpose of the event is older adults represent a third of 911 calls in Amherst. And I want to make sure that those older adults know who's coming to their house in an emergency. So not only do you get to know your local first responders, but you get a whole plethora of information on how to stay safe. And then you get some fun activities too. You can see how the police department uses canine dogs. You can see how the fire department uses the job of life. If you have grandkids, you can bring them and there will be a DJ and face painting. We'll have La Mesa food truck. There'll be information tables from the Northwestern District Attorney's Office and the Sheriff's Department. If any of you don't know, the Sheriff's Department offers the triad program. And one of their huge things that they've been doing right now is durable medical equipment loans. So when people are having surgery and they need a walker or they need shower seats or the hospital beds, they can help at no cost. People in the community get those services. I love these types of events because not only is it good for our older adults, but it's good for everybody in the community.  There will also do some car seat inspections and things like that. And that's all June. And in July, just to put on people's, oh yeah. Sorry, can we just hold up on community safety day for a second? So I just want to say I did it last year and it was a lot of fun. And this year, as Haley said, it's been working hard. It's going to be even bigger. And a couple of things that I just want to highlight that we are going to be doing is this is where we're going to display a to-go bag that we've been talking about, that we can help with visuals, make this real for folks in terms of what you should have. So that will be one of our, one of the things. Another thing that we're going to have on display is photos, thanks to our expert photographer. We do all kinds of cool programs throughout the year. And we've got this great guy who shoots pictures, but most of us haven't seen these awesome photos. So not to put Dennis on the spot, but we're trying to spotlight because I think it's going to help us as a COA, help educate people in the community about the variety of things we do and the different things that we're involved with. So I'm going to go out on a limb here, Dennis, and say, going forward anytime the COA is at any of these events, we're going to have your photo display. And I envision that it's going to evolve over the years. We're going to have print version. We're going to have a digital slideshow. Who knows where we're going with this, but I think it's going to be really helpful for us. So I want to encourage all of you to volunteer at Community Safety Day. It's at Mill River. You can come for a little, you can come for a lot, whatever. But I think it's really important that we have a presence there. And I also want to thank Ann, you donated your working on putting that to go bag together for us. And I wasn't certain if you would be able to make it or not, Ann. And if you can't, I will volunteer to pick it up from you. I have it, my hand is up because I need to know what part of the Mill River Recreation Area to go to and what time I need to be there. It's at 10 and we are going to take over the whole area.  I'm really asking where you want that go bag because I'm really not capable of walking around the whole thing carrying it. I'd like to go to one place. Do you want to drop it off at the Senior Center on Friday? Because I load a van and bring everything over in the morning. I think it would be easier if I bring it and open it so that I've arranged it so people can really see if there's things in it. Otherwise, it's just a backpack on wheels, which is useless. Okay. So then I would say plan to come around 9 a.m. and we set up on the opposite side of the basketball courts. So you want to go to that parking area and then I'll see you when you pull up and I'll show you where the tents are and you can set it up on our tables. Opposite the basketball court. Okay. Thank you. That's great. I'm very excited that we're going to finally have our to-go bag on display. All right. Sorry, Hailey. I interrupted you there. That's all right. The last thing I was going to flag for people is that throughout the months of July and August, we're going to be doing ice cream socials at the Bang Center. They start from 1 and go till 2 and we love to have celebrity guests. So if anyone from the COA wants to stop by, you're more than welcome to do so. It's a really great way to get to know people in like a really casual atmosphere. I already know that the Crest, APD, the fire department, they're all going to be there and I plan to reach out to some town counselors and Pam and Jen in the DEI office. So it'll be a great way to kind of connect with older adults in a low-key setting. Depending on the speaker, the fire department do a crowd of like 15 people. So some individuals have some serious sway and it'll just be fun to see people there. So you're all welcome Fridays throughout July and August, one to two at the Bang Center. Do people have any other questions? Upcoming events? Do you already have dates for when others are coming into that meeting? I tried to get dates and then they told me we'll come to a lot of them. So I said, well, what's a lot? Are you coming every week or not? So I'm still trying to pinpoint that. I was going to say, if there was a date when a bunch of us were available, because my thought is if we come into the ice cream social, maybe we can get that to go bag on display. We can get our photo display up there so we can get more excitement and interest in. If you got, if everyone here can collectively agree, tell me the date and I'll tell people not to come on that particular day. Let's do it that way. Do folks know what there are summer schedules? Or work every Friday. Okay. All right. So that won't work for you then, Chad. Others that might be available? I work every Friday too. However, I do want to request some hours off to attend the safe day. When is that? That is Saturday, June 24th. It's the last Saturday in June. Oh, that's the day off. Okay. Nice. Put it on my calendar. Yeah. You can actually sit on the police motorcycles or in the fire truck and we can take your picture.  It's your picture taken. That's right. It's all about the pictures. Yeah. Then we got to get the COA Instagram page so that everyone can tag us in their photos on the touch of truck event. Yeah. So I'm thinking long term here. Norma? Yeah. Well, I was going to say when July 4th is what day of the week? July 4th is a Tuesday. So the senior center will be closed, but the town will be doing the firework display on the 1st of July. So it's the Saturday. Because I'm thinking maybe a lot of people will be gone and if that's when you wanted people to come, you know. Yeah. It's tough to say. I know it's the last, it's the Saturday after the end of the school year. So I'm hoping that people will let their kid finish the school year and be around on Saturday. But we had over 300 people last year and now we've also involved UMass PD. They're going to be handing out ice cream and bringing a horse. So I think that'll pull a lot of people because people love animals. So what's an event for the whole community? It's not just for seniors. It's groups of children, families. Okay. All right. Thank you. Community safety day. And one of the important things to me was to have an event that, you know, sometimes we talk about what our older adults mean and it's like, it doesn't, what older adults need or what we all need, which is community, which is to know how to stay safe, which is to know who are my first responders, how do I, what do I do if I've been scammed. So it's kind of trying to, at least in my mind, take a bit more of a modern approach and say, hey, like, we don't have to think of older adults needs as like an other. It encompasses the whole community because they're part of the community and everyone is aging every day. So that's why I, for some events, not every event, but for some events, I like to structure it where it could just be open to anybody. Because I think that helps reduce some of the stigma. You know, the people who tell me they're 78 and too young for the senior center, I want to say no, like, calm anyway, like you're going to love it. Just give us a chance. That's my vision of our senior center when we get it built is that it's, it's intergenerational. Yeah. Do you, has anyone done anything about talking to like that class that you, you took KLA with the students, I don't know if it was a psychology class that they came to the senior center and the mindfulness class that we did? I don't know. Is that the one you mean? Quite a few students did was then they came over to the senior center. It was, I thought it was a cycle. Oh, do you mean the Amherst college class? Yes. Yeah. So in the fall, Amherst college will be offering a class on aging and ageism. I spoke at the class and then I invited the class to come to the senior center to talk to real seniors. And yeah, I had a had a really great time. I think the instructor really loved it. So plan to reach out to her maybe sometime in August. So I can like put it on her radar that, Hey, you know, we would love to do a special event and maybe even make it a bit more formalized than it, than it was last year, because it was kind of put together at the last minute. Good. Well, I went to one that they did a few years ago. I don't even remember what it was called. They just wanted to match up with senior with a high school student.  I don't know anyone's seen it. Yeah. I mean, I love intergenerational. One of the one thing that I remember about working with older adults in my first senior center director job was I was talking to a woman and she said, you know, oh, I grew up in the fifties and I had a job and she was married and she took the money from her earnings and she wanted to buy a television and she went to the store and the sales person told her, no, not without your husband, you need your husband here in order for me to tell you this TV. And I thought, you know, that's not that long ago that you needed your husband to go with you to buy a TV that you could afford to purchase on the spot. So if we don't share those stories, kids don't know that. And, you know, it's easy to take for granted the things we have now because we don't appreciate the struggles that people had to go through to get us to this point. So yeah, I definitely like intergenerational. It's the best way to go.  You can't get that TV. That's true. Well, now they cost a lot. So yeah, I can move on. So I wanted to just don't want to end my report on a on a somber note, but I wanted to talk a little bit about last meeting. I had a few people come up to me privately after that meeting was put on TV and just said that, you know, wow, that that must have been really difficult for you because I think I don't know that everyone really understood how challenging that meeting was for me. You know, talking about those experiences at the bank center and people who are combative and people who are threatening, you know, I think it's easy to say, well, you know, you should have done this, you should have done that unless you're there and you're you're working it in the moment.  You know, my staff and I, people who come to the senior center deserve to feel safe. And one of the ways that we feel safe is when we call the Amherst police department to come. You know, I love using crests. Don't get me wrong. But in a situation like happened that Wednesday, you know, if we made three phone calls to the Amherst police department, they can do a criminal trespass on someone and they can prevent that person from coming back to the senior center. You know, the reality is that we are a public building and we have individuals from all walks of life and sometimes that's great, but sometimes it's not. And sometimes it's really hard on people. We have a class that meets Tuesdays and Thursdays and they've stopped leaving the door open in the room that they practice in because they've heard people screaming and shouting profanities and they don't feel safe if they don't have the door closed and things like that break my heart. You know, and it was just, I was really emotional because of how fresh that was for me.  But unless you're there and someone is screaming those things in your face, if you feel unsafe, I always tell my staff, call Amherst police department, get somebody in there who can handle the scene and do what needs to be done because you don't know anymore if someone is going to fly off the handle.  It's really tough. It's really, really tough. And, you know, and it was hard for me at the same time to then hear, you know, folks say, well, you do a really good job, but we need to be doing X, Y and Z. I think that hopefully, Gene and Dennis, you can attest, you know, when we had the COA training, COA is our advisory to the senior center director to support what I'm doing. And when we talk about programming, it's not to say, oh, well, you know, we should have, you know, this group or that group, it's to say, hey, we noticed that we're not serving this population. Or for example, we have a program and homeless seniors are coming to that program. What other services can we branch off of for that? You know, we can go on our own course, but meeting the seniors at the center is the best way to know what their needs are. I would never have known some of the things that people are going through in this community with courting, you know, people whose families are abusing their parent and they're trying to be the caregiver, but they can't always handle it, you know, older adults who have developmental disabilities.  You should not say that. Please don't do that. If you don't meet the people at the center, how do we know how to support them? We need to bring them here so that we have that touch point, that one focus point, because the senior center should be the community center in the sense that it's the place people can come and be amongst each other in a safe environment, in a safe environment that is welcoming and understands the unique needs of older adults. And everything that this council does should have that message in place and should be focused on how do we connect with people? How do we bring them in? Like I said, people are socially isolated post-pandemic. That is going to not only deteriorate their physical health, because they're not going to be walking, so their mobility is going to get worse. So they're going to keep falling and falls can kill people.  It's going to increase rates of suicide. It's going to increase rates of depression. It's going to increase rates of dementia. We need people active and we need them active at the center. And, you know, we can do satellite programs that are not at the senior center, but the good place to start is the center. And I think that really should be the focus. And I want to have meetings where we are coming together and being proactive so that it's not just saying, oh, well, you know, we should be doing X, Y, and Z. And then we talk about it. And then maybe we forget that we talked about it. And so six months from now, we talk about it again. Like the calendar is good. I like where we're going now. I think we should definitely be more strategic and think about how do we best serve the people in the community who are fragmented and need the support of the senior center? You know, I'll end just by saying one of the best programs we did in Burniston was called Mrs. Claus for a cause. And we did it every December. And we made care packages for people who either lost a loved one recently, or their spouse died around the holidays, or their kids moved away so they were alone. And we brought them gift bags. They weren't expensive. A couple of puzzle books, some candy, lotions, things like that. But it made people feel good to be remembered around the holiday, to feel connected to their community. You know, that sounds simple, but that has a lot of impact. And we can do that. We can do that this December. It's not hard. I can go through how we did it before. You know, those are the kinds of things that I would like to see us do. You know, as we onboard our new members next month, I would like to see us think about real, tangible things we can do to get people at the center. Because that's what's important to me is seeing people and having connections. Well said. Congratulations. And thank you. Thank you. Yeah. When at the moment that anybody actually perceives a threat in a public building, that I think the appropriate action should be taken right away. If somebody's standing around a little disturbed for whatever reason, screaming obscenities, and that sort of thing, that person absolutely needs to leave the building immediately. And there shouldn't be any question about that. And because of the potential of violence, that you probably need to go immediately to the PD, to the police. Because anything else just sort of, like I said, if you perceive a threat of violence, then that needs to be responded to right away. So that's my take on it. So big responsibility. Yeah. We can't fool around with that. Especially when you've got elderly people who are getting yelled at with obscenities. No, not at all. We want this to be a happy place for people. Not a place where they have to feel like they have to close the doors because if they don't, they're going to hear something that they don't want to hear, or somebody's going to run into their room and be on towards. Oh, no. No, no, no. There are laws in place here in the Commonwealth, specifically pointing out acts of violence against senior citizens. And so that should be a really significant clue as to what actions should be taken. Was this incident publicized? Is it in the newspaper? No. It could be in the Amherst Bulletin when they do like the police calls, but it didn't get a write up or anything like that. Yes. I'm rather glad that it didn't. I think you took the right action. And I'm glad that it didn't because I wouldn't want to frighten people not, you know, to not come into the center because they think they might be in danger. It is an isolated incident. It doesn't thank God happen really often. And you have a big responsibility for protection. We're living in a world where, you know, children get killed in elementary schools. And so this fortunately was somebody who was being disruptive and frightening, but you can't tell, you know, that we're just living in a world where people behave irrationally. So I think Haley's responsibility is enormous there. Thanks. And although I wasn't at the meeting, I would just like to say when we have, and hopefully we don't have any other incidents like that, but if somebody is sharing something that was, I'm going to say, traumatic, I think our initial response should be one of support. And I think there's always time after the fact that you can sort of debrief on it to, you know, give thought to whether other things that would have, you know, we could have done or things for the future to bear in mind. But I think at the time, it's to listen and be supportive because I can only imagine how difficult and challenging and kind of emotionally draining that was for you, Haley. So we're grateful that you do what you do. Thank you. You take care of us. So thank you. Thank you for being here. Of course. It's what I'm here for. I think next on our agenda is the minutes from the main meeting. And does anybody have any changes, edits, additions, subtractions? If not, anybody want to make a, somebody want to make a motion to approve? So moved. Seconded. Second. There we go. Thank you. All in favor. All right. I'm not voting because I wasn't there. So that's probably for the best. What do I know? All right. I don't, I don't know if it's my eyes, but I don't see Chad. Yeah, he's, he's top left corner on me. Okay. Are you there? You can see him? Yeah, I just thought. Yeah, he's there. Okay. Awesome. I can't see you. You're, you're blank on my screen. So, okay. All right. Just wanted to make sure we didn't miss you. Okay. All right. Next is topics not reasonably anticipated by the chair. 48 hours in advance of the meeting. I do not have any of those. The only thing I can think of would be our friend's fundraiser with, with Mr. Dick Yorga is here. He could talk about how everyone should come by scarves, purses and jewelry at the farmers market this Saturday. Hi, Derek. I advertised it over at Amherst neighbors. Awesome. Oh, good. Turn out. Dick, are you still there? Do you want to say a few words on the fundraiser? Dick, can you hear us? We can't hear you. His screen just changed from what it was the whole meeting. Yeah, I don't know what. Yeah. What is that? And somebody's a big gray circle. Yeah, that's it. Oh, outer space. Dick, we cannot hear you. No, maybe you should. An email, right, Hallie? I'm sorry? An email. Send him an email. Somebody. I can do that. I'll text him. Dennis, you could start though, because you're, you're on the friends, you know. No, I don't know what he's, what he's got planned for a report. So I don't, I don't plan to Okay. Thank you very much for offering though. It's, it's independent. They, they're not going to ask anything from us anyway, I assume. No, but just to give an update. Well, I guess the only really update is bring, bring your cash for the farmers market Saturday. We want to raise money for our scholarship program, our wellness scholarships. We've seen a real uptake and people needing help for foot care appointments. And we also want to raise some money for the memory cafe. Awesome. And what are the hours again? 10 to two? I think it's actually nine to one. Oh, okay. Should know that. I've been talking about it for like four months. Well, I have to, I have to pick up the van at no, certainly no, I'll be like about eight, 15 or so. Yeah, that's time for the 10. And then I assume that I can probably pull the van over into, let's say, Bultwood and offload from there. Probably. Yeah, I can. Yeah, I think that sounds like a good plan. Then we can unload and set up. See if I can call. Hi, Dick. Yeah, I can't hear you. Wait a minute. Can you just go to the bottom of the screen? Yeah, that's a very good question. Left, left bottom corner of your screen. You've got a little microphone logo over there. You have it there. You should tell him to leave and come back. I'll tell you what, Dick, the suggestion has been made for you to leave, sign out and then come back. Reboot. Yeah, reboot. Is that his television that we hear? Yeah, I don't know what we're doing. No, but your television is Norma. Sorry, it is. Sorry. So I wonder if to be efficient with time, if we can have Norma do her report while Dick is trying to reboot. Yeah. Okay, this is the last report that I will give until the fall because we won't have any more meetings. We had a meeting for the nutrition council on the 10th of May and it's the usual routine and I don't want to bore you with it. So tell me if I need to speed up. What are the best things that people like and had leave like their pork chop with pears, other people said the pork chops were tough. So again, it's always hard to get an accurate count. But amherst like chicken pot pie, baked ziti, and corned beef was tasty and appealing. And lemon and dill on some salmon was highly rated. Broccoli and cheese is good. Shepherd's pie had corn added this time and people were pleased with that. But the least liked were taco salad or a Pollock was too dry. Pork chop tough. So I guess that was not just a couple people said that. And they wanted to know when they were going to get back to international dinners, they've been switching from community dining sites. Well now all of the community dining sites are open and in use. And Westfield has been for a long time and amherst with the go grab and go meals. There were some comments. They said that the boxes or whatever they kept the milk in, smelled like it needed to be rinsed out, that it had smell of sour milk. So that's not good, but that'll be corrected. More salads. And they know that that will happen at least once a week during the summer, if not more. Another comment about sodium content and a time when people signed up for one meal and they got quiche instead. And that's usually up to the dining person in charge to tell them ahead of time. But I don't know why this happened if they ran out or something happened to the way they cooked it. So and they all have iPads if they order their meals and stuff. So that's good and that's going well. But they did have four snow days, more so in the hill towns that they did actually get snow.  But we didn't have the ice that I guess they expect it's better safe than sorry. This is items from the chef and survey responses. There was a talk about the ginger carrots. Some say more ginger, some say none. And some say cook the cooking it more would help. Also, they usually try to blanch them and then steam them. So hopefully that will make a difference. Menu updates. There's going to be a salad, I says, as I said, at least once a week during the summer. Chicken Curry is now on the menu. Lemon bars are a hit. And they will try to get local vegetables as soon as they're available. And the farmer that they usually got asparagus from pop failed this year. So I don't know if they got it from someone else or if they just didn't have it as often. Kitchen updates, trying to reduce the food waste is really difficult because many times you can't refree stuff. So that's sometimes a problem. But 10 to 15% choose the choice meal on a cold day. Prefer meat over fish and then those that prefer fish over vegetarian. So I guess the vegetarian people win. They get what they want. Then some wondered why people get a package of meals so that it all takes care of dinner. And I didn't realize that they did this, I guess as frequently as they do. And they have to order it two months ahead of time. And so this is clearly someone who isn't able to cook themselves and doesn't have someone there to help them. Total meals have increased by 5%. But they have on average 710 meals a day that they put out. Any questions? Oh, they did want to know if you wanted to change the format of it's kind of boring to go through while dislikes. It's also relative to each person. But the commodities have been really down in June. And Kelly, the nutritionist, said that the fiscal year starts July 1. And that they will be having some chicken and turkey roasts, ground beef, canned fruits and vegetables. And these are just as good. I mean, if you get a canned fruit that's cold and it's in the refrigerator and it's packed in its own juice, that's just as healthy as eating it fresh. But of course we prefer it fresh if we can get it. And then the program updates. They want more vegetarian options. And choice meals, less sweets. Butternut squash is running out. And they'll look for, you know, zucchini or summer squash to take its place. Salads, as I said, once a week. They do plan strawberry shortcake dessert at the end of June. And their kitchen is fully staffed. And they wondered if people would change the content of their surveys because they are time consuming. They do all these statistics. And I mean, I'm not big on numbers. So I don't want to bore you with reading that. But they just want to know that they're doing it okay. And if not, to let them know. Any questions? They are even trying to hire another dietitian or nutritionist. Because Kelly likes to go out to the you know, the community meals and do a little presentation. And that's pertinent. But, you know, like keeping hydrated, not just in the summer. But, you know, if you're sick or you don't feel so it's tried to be tied into to help help them. So and she's available for questions.  So okay, and they voted not to have a meeting in July. So I'll see you in September. Thank you. Yeah, that's right. Don't ask me to sing it. I did want to say this. How else would they know with the population they're serving, what they like and don't like? I think that those questions are fairly relevant. Yeah. You really do want to provide, you know, you don't want to throw I know people that that get that dinner. And if they don't like something, they're going to throw it out. So the more you know about what people like, the less wasteful you're going to be and the less money you're going to be spending on things that they're not going to eat. That's a good point.  So appreciate that. Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Norma. You're welcome. Has, I don't know if it's my screen. Has Dick come back? I don't believe so. No. No. He's gone completely. Anybody heard from him? Are we texting him? If you said he could talk, but he none of us could hear him. Yeah. Is there anything else to be said about the pop-up closet? Pop-up closet to be on the 30th then the 10th. Yeah, the 10th in it. Sorry. What am I, the 20th, the 13th anyway? That's a salt council meeting. No, it's the canceled friends meeting. Okay. Sorry about that. No, Saturday at any rate from let's say nine-ish to one. Yeah, one. Come with lots and lots of dollars. It's all for a good cause. Yeah. Cash-only operation. Yes, for now. You know, they do charge fees, but I can say. But you wouldn't take a check either. I'll take a check, but I prefer cash. Cash is cash. But you know, and the reality is our spending is doubled and our revenue is halved. So every little bit that we can get, we will be very happy to do so. And like I said, it all goes to doing the programs and activities because we don't get any budget for that. That's all grants and donations. Yep. Okay, so everybody's on Saturday morning shopping. Yeah. Saturday morning. I'm going to be bringing the most amazing collection of vintage ladies hankies.  There'll be a run on those, Dennis. Are you still taking donations? Oh, we could. We stopped and we did load the van up, but if it's really, really nice, I will happily take it if it can be brought over tomorrow. Can we park in the... Can we park in the parking lot on Saturday if it's a function going on? For the bank center? For the bank center, yeah. Yeah, we're going to be at the farmer's market. So we'll be on the common, but yeah, you could park. Well, it's hard to park sometimes with the market going on because you know... Yeah, it is tough. If you have a senior parking permit, those are only good Monday through Friday though. So if you were intending to use that, I'm sorry, but you have to pay or hope they don't bust you, whichever you want. Yeah, and I will be there probably around nine. Excellent. I got some scarves with your name on it. Oh, okay. Yeah, I made a few things too. Okay, our next meeting is Thursday, July 13th. So circle that on your calendar. Some of the Amherst boards are now meeting in person. I'm sorry? Some of the Amherst boards are now meeting in person. Are we special or the same or what's the story? Yeah, I think Jean and I can definitely talk with the town manager and report back at our next meeting. So it's going to be the 13th? The 13th of July. Lucky 13. So hopefully it's a successful pop-up and if you're not doing anything on Saturday, July 1st, there's going to be fireworks and activities at the stadium and your help is needed and wanted. Very much wanted. So desire and otherwise hopefully you have a sparkling forth. Oh, you have a question, Teri? Yeah, I was just going to say that I'll do the minutes until the new group comes and see what happens with that. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you very much. Okay, anybody have anything else? Are we ever going to have a blood pressure clinic again? We had offered those for like six months and no one showed up. But we are collaborating with the public health nurse from the health department and she can do them. We have a standing clinic with her that I don't unfortunately remember the time of right now but if you call the senior center on Monday we can tell you. I would say call tomorrow but we have the town of Amherst employee picnic at noon so we're going to be shutting down early. I'll be there on Monday. Okay. I'll leave Jean. Yes, that's right. Yeah. All right. Okay. Make a motion to adjourn. Thank you, Dennis. You're welcome. Second. Second. Second. All in favor. Oh yeah. Again, fond farewell to Karen and Anne. Yes, thank you. Thank you for everything. We will see you in the course of our travels around town but we'll miss you. Yes, for sure. We will see you shopping Saturday morning. All right. Take care. Anne is on mute. You're on mute. I will see you at the Mill River. Oh yes. I will see you then. I remember that. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.


We're gathered here at the University of Birmingham for the Constructing a Digital Environment 2022 conference, which is part of the NERC's programme about Constructing a Digital Environment. We have a very interesting agenda, which is all about bringing digital and data sciences to the environmental sciences, so a lot of activities about that throughout the next couple of days, including a hackathon, we've got various master classes, we've oral presentations, some excellent keynote speakers and all sorts of exhibitions and posters, so it's going to be an exciting couple of days. NERC is the Natural Environment Research Council, so it's where a lot of earth scientists get their funding from. Today's bringing together everyone who's been involved in this kind of NERC-funded programme over the past few years, attending the conference we've got a whole variety of scientists who are doing all sorts of things in this kind of environment and digital realm, so I'm really excited to be here to actually get to talk to them in person and find out what they're doing and how it interacts with what I'm doing as part of the scheme. I think it's a great opportunity to showcase the work of the programme. We have well over 200 people attending, both physically and virtually, from a wide array of different academic institutions, but also NERC national centres. It's really all about trying to bring some of these very exciting techniques from data science and digital techniques, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and apply them to environmental science, so we have a series of fantastic speeches, talks, exhibitions, demonstrations where these techniques can be used to really try to advance our understanding of the environment. Traditionally as scientists we tend to work in quite a siloed way and there's a recognition that we've got to work in a much more multidisciplinary way and we've got to work across thematic, so I'm an oceanographer but there are people here from the terrestrial environment, there are people from the atmospheric environment. We're already pretty good at working across those science themes, but increasingly we've also looked into work across the sort of the digital capabilities of engineers, so as scientists we tend not to have that much interaction engineers historically, but this sort of programme brings together people from lots of different backgrounds. In the poster session outside I've seen some really interesting posters already, so I'm really interested in rainfall data because it's absolutely critical to flooding, so there's been a poster out there which is looking at getting better measurements for the rainfall that actually hits the ground under tree canopies, so you get a lot less water hitting the ground because trees are intercepting it, so I'm going to go have a look in more detail at that. One of the things we're doing is the hackathon and of course this allows people to try to find ways of communicating the wide variety of data sets held by the Natural Environment Research Council and other environmental custodians of data and bringing art into that science. Hackathon is kind of an interesting experience for everyone, so we just try to put people together from different backgrounds and from different institutions and to come to here to brainstorm some new ideas. The idea is trying to use this opportunity to develop something we normally don't have time to develop ourselves, something more beyond the science to inspire people or to move people's hearts and to change their perception of using a different format that normally we'll see in the science. In academia it's very easy to be in your own little bubble working with people researching in very similar areas, so a hackathon brings people together from a wide variety of backgrounds and you'll get presented ideas which you probably more likely wouldn't have thought of yourself. Just hearing a couple of guys talking about what they want to do with their work so far and like this maybe like in the first hour, it's made me think about ways that I can apply some of my research background into other areas. So this is an incomplete picture, it's the name of this piece I created for the Interacting Indigenous Environment Art Science Hackathon. It explores uncertainty and data gaps in species trends. When we look at these analyses of trends we're really only reporting on a subset of biodiversity that is being monitored and being measured and of those that are being monitored and measured there's actually a lot of variation in the precision of those trends. This piece is trying to explore those uncertainties and data gaps in this trends data. When a species was very confident the engraving line was very confident and when the trend estimation for species was uncertain the line became broken and hard to read. I used those cuts to represent the space, the gaps in the data that we have. I think all in all create this yeah really nice visual of this incomplete picture, pictures broken in half. Climate change is a huge problem that affects pretty much everything and so we've really got to start working together if we're actually going to come up with proper solutions to these issues. So having everyone here in the same place is incredible because you can have hydrologists and coastal scientists and marine scientists and atmospheric scientists all talking to each other and trying to get to the root of the same problem. I'm really hoping to raise awareness of what we've been delivering over the last three years but also to look forwards in terms of maintaining engagement with those individuals, having peer-to-peer conversations about some of the work that's been delivered and focusing on how to deliver the strategy going forwards.