Women have been advised to hold onto God in whatever they do and never deviate from His ways as He's capable of taking over their many burdens. This was advised, was handed down by Grace Odubodi during the occasion of her 80th birthday celebration in Lagos. Plus, TV correspondent Lavi Cocoyedokun was there and now reports. Clocking 80 is no main fate. It's something worth celebrating. No wonder the family, friends and well-wishers of Grace Odubodi over the weekend gather together to celebrate and rejoice with the octogenarian. From far and near, they traveled to Grace's occasion. The mode was exquisite with beautiful sparkling glitter floral drenched in purple hues as a live band entertained guests. The children believe celebrating a woman who had endured a lot to ensure that they get a good education is the least they can do. This woman did at the last Kandawa 20 odd jobs to train all of us, all nine of us, to go through the university as graduates. Odd jobs. I mean, it's absolutely impossible for us not to appreciate that. Because those, you know, we all, in high school at the time, it was very difficult. And she demonstrated through her entrepreneurship, through her diligence, through her commitment, through her dedication that it can be done. So our life is not just an inspiration or motivation for us. It's actually for the foundation of everything that we also became later in life can be found in her. So today's payback time is basically for us to thank God for sparing our life. And secondly, to say thanks to her for all she has done for us. She's a very enterprising mother. There's no doubt about the fact that she loves her children. And I tell you that she's done a very good job bringing up eight great men. These are responsible, enterprising, hard-working men. Mommy's got fairing. She's a praying mother. For friends and close associates, Grace Olubode is simply an embodiment of God's love. Mama has been wonderful. She has always been for us. Even while we were young, before we entered the university, she was always there. When each time we went to her, she would always call us and advise us that, no, I know fully that, I know you will play for more than 40 years, more than 50 years. After the glory of God, we have every cause to celebrate Mama today. I should live longer. In 90, we celebrate another 90 years. And all of us should be alive to celebrate her. And it should be a point where people will let my life be like that of a mommy from yet to come. At 80, looking back, the celebrant is feeling fulfilled and simply grateful to God. There's nothing I can say that to thank God and advise so many women to be so... Just like her name. Just to depend on God. I'll be doing everything for you. Don't watch God. Go back to God. Just hold on to God. I will be your strength forever. The highlight of the occasion is the cutting of the cake by the celebrant flunged by her children. The children. The grand children. Love you cuckoo. So you get notified about fresh news updates.


Hey everyone and welcome back to some more VGC online battling and my name is Lee also known as Osiris We kicked off earlier in the week with the Intellion team and we're just gonna continue on them literally continue on from where we left off Last week and so hopefully you enjoyed that last episode and hopefully you enjoyed this one I believe get some more battles and it's a big episode of hope pleases in it But if you do enjoy the content like I was saying at the end of the last episode Please leave a like on the video and do subscribe It's more important to leave a like or a comment down below the likes or what I'm looking out for because I'm not committing to doing Full-on VG five days a week until I kind of know that there's an audience for it And you guys want to see this content So if you can leave a like do drop a like we'll try and get to a hundred likes like that's the goal with this And then that that will guarantee let me know that you guys want to see more of this sort of content and I will Publish the team at the end of this episode as well So if you like the rental team for this specific variant, then I'll post it at the end of the video But without further ado, let's just get straight into it So the team that we're playing at the minute is Intellion Dom Anatan Rotom Cut Arcanine Dustclops and the right period I'm pretty sure That is the six or is that five. I don't know Seba VGC is our next opponent now. So let's have a look. Yeah, so there we go There's a team and it's been pretty nice so far in the couple of matches that we've already featured this week So hopefully we can continue on this team looks kind of fun. So we've got Dragapult. We've got in DD female Taranita, Togokis, Whimsicott and Rotom Wash. So pretty balanced team I'm surprised there's no fire typing here But you've got the kind of fire coverage on potentially Togokis, Taranita or Dragapult. I imagine it's probably on the Dragapult Because otherwise this team looks like it gets absolutely ruined by Durant But yeah, I mean it's fine. So what are we gonna do? Do we go down a trick room route?  We've got 21 seconds. Let's go and tell you on do I need Arcanine here I don't know if I do let's bring Dom Anatan. Just got the big guns up front And let's go dustclops right here in the back. I think we can do With these four Let's see how we get on But I'm still learning the team as well. I'm still learning how this team operates This was an idea I had for a team throwing these Pokemon together. So we're literally Experiencing this team together, which I hope is something you guys enjoy because there's always an idea that I had when I was doing VG content is to kind of do the process of what players go through when they're testing teams and To try and make them a little bit better. I'm a little bit scared by the helping hand max dragapult attack here But I think my opponent probably Probably is a little bit more scared of I've got a max air screen for sure We did max didn't we? Yeah, we want a max max air screen It seems really wasteful max air streaming here what I'm gonna actually do for max darkness It's just actually now I'm gonna max air screen because I want to get the jump on the dragapult that's next to him It's gonna follow me anyway, let's see if the dragapult. Yeah, the dragapult's gonna max I'm hoping The thing is like if it's not like fully invested in speeds Then in teleon probably will out speed it so we'll get the jump on it It being able to attack which is handy I guess but with clear body you can't even intimidate it So it's not like that's an option. I think the main thing is getting rid of the indeed right now And in utilizing speed control, so we've got the jump on it going into next turn That's what we want. So at least in teleon then can pressure it with Max ice or max darkness whichever one we want to go for Let's see Follow me. I've got a feeling that we'll probably have to be the dragapult right here. Watch me my words Go make this dream Okay, well that's not the worst at least we're keeping pace with my opponent and we're gonna get rid of the indeed in here There's no way it survives a bandage. You said like it'll take the max air screen The only problem with you turning here is that we're not benefiting on the dorm side from The speed boost which is a little bit sad.  I really don't think it is Nope Don't okay. That's yeah I mean Generally, I don't think you count for that sort of thing. So it's fine. Um What do we want to bring in? Disclops right period. I mean desclops is all right we could That's not time for the trick room yet though. Is it? It's not Let's go for it though Let's see what my point is in because I guess this is a problem when we're kind of you turning out with Then with Dom I mean we could have stayed in nice punched And maybe kept Desclops for later Okay, it's it's wrote Wrote down. All right, um We got max darkness Into dragon fold And I do want to keep my desclops for later on in the match. I think what I'm gonna do is Sack Domino time here Because if I'm my opponent, I think with dragon fold, I'd probably attack into desclops max Uh max phantasm just to try and get as much damage onto it as possible No, no, if the trickling goes up. I'm pretty speed now a max darkness from us life old Should it should take it down But maybe not as well. Maybe maybe it survives The dragon fold surprising like but this is like max speed, right? So, okay Special attack balls And we're going to take it from the bottom here Wow Okay There's a lot of damage Um, then desclops will be able to take this I'm pretty sure we'll take the max phantasm Pretty sure shook a berry Oh Not really too weird. I just want to get some damage onto the northern to be honest I think we've got the max darkness and We'll try the trick room I mean, we've kind of got to get it up for the end game to be honest ally switch All right, come on. Let's let's take it Oh, we've just taken just just I really want I really wanted intelligent to go down here. So we've got the switch into um, we've got the free switch Into right period, but it's not going to happen Thing is though, I think if you're my opponent Next turn if you're going to attack anything like if you're going to attack the intelligent with your rodent you've got thunderbolts So it's a pretty nice switch in for us Like I can't see you risking a hydro pump not effective and Intelliom might be useful like if the trick room ends and we need to bring something else in Like what I want, I don't want to see here is Taranatum right now. It puts a lot of pressure onto our dust globes and Maybe just concentrate down on dust globes, I guess I'm probably gonna have to like Is it better if I just bulldoze Bulldoze here and switch into right period and I think it might be you know Because I really like I could paint split I could paint split But I think dust globes go probably goes down anyway Um bulldozing seems probably a better idea. I think yeah, we'll go bulldoze I need to prop the weakness policy And if for some reason dust globes gets through this turn The problem is we could proc it on Taranatum as well. It wouldn't surprise me if we do That could be a bit of an issue Oh, we're gonna say that's a weakness policy, so Thank you very much. I mean, I think we need it for the Rotom. I think we need to proc it for the Rotom And let's just pray we don't see a hydropump here if we see hydropump. We're done for we lose All that all that I mean, that's a smart play from my phone. They're kind of covering bases aren't they Just on the switch like in case the switch comes in so fair play And all we've got left is um flinching Flinching and one attack left with uh in teleon which we're gonna have to snipe shot the Taranatum So we get a double flinch here still in this still in this Double flinch and then the Rotom's gonna be a nightmare to take down anywhere because born hydropump Well, maybe we'll see we'll see we need the flinch on the Tarana We need the flinch. We need the double flinch like a hundred percent There's one a hydropump and it makes it and we get the snipe shot This is sick. Oh my god. My opponent must be like screw this game Oh brutal brutal We still haven't won yet though. We still gotta face this hydropump thing. Um, but single target rockslide Now the rockslide did It's in prok Oh, it's got the shucker, hasn't it? Yeah This we might get it. You know single target rockslide. I think that's it from here. I think yeah From the damage that we've just done we hit King of rng here we go seba, I mean Yeah, just well What can I say there's nothing to say a good game The rng was kind of me there, but I'm not even gonna be sorry.  I know I know. Okay. There we go. It's pokemon though Man if I did that every time I got BSed out of a match Uh I'm rating would be terrible, but anyway moving on moving on will be will be um We'll not discuss it anymore. We've got revo though. There's our next opponent I'm trying my best not to laugh because I'm fine the situations even if I'm on the receiving end I do tend to find the funny side of it because it's just so ridiculous Um, but you've got to play to your outs. You've got to play to your outs And uh, that's what you've got to do. There's a pokemon master Learn that from ash catching I did Anyway, we've got revo playing sander konda got the tail Uh, snorlax lapras arcanine and ferrithon. It's going to be a trap team Perish trap, isn't it? Perish on lapras trap with goth hotel sander konda all lax gonna be uh I would imagine sander konda um But I think like I don't want to bring my trick room out here.  They've got fake out for sure, but They've got no trick room Um, I don't really care about lapras too much Like what is this speed control? Like I see when maybe goth hotels got fake uh trick room, but I mean If goth hotels got trick room and it needs to get the trick room set up There's no way it's taking a double attack from intelion or darman attack And I feel like if we can just get the the guesses right here We can like I said initially just overwhelm my opponent from the the get go And just deny them the trick room But we'll see they might be smarter than us. They probably are so see what they do and sander konda and goth hotel And I mean if the goth hotel doesn't max here and uh decides to um Decide to fake out then we are getting an attack into it and I think what we'll do Let's go let's double into the goth hotel. Let's just do it. I'm not really too worried about sander konda. What's it? What's it gonna do? It's not the like the most The strongest physical attacker. It's got ridiculous defensive, but well defense Especially I just don't see the goth hotel even with a barrier like all we need a bit of chip but don't mind it's time to to get it with the u2 Unless it does fake out, but if it fakes out, it's not trick room. So that's that's the thing Um, we're gonna see probably sander konda This is the first one I played No, let's see what happens here Uh got the hotel fake out. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. But like I say, it's not going for the fake out I've not gone for the trick. So I mean, I don't mind that. Wow sander konda gonna do That's the thing like sander konda's special defense for this as well with this dog Like it's a gorgeous another great reason about um Reason can tell it on is like g max support the man of time flinch and sandblast Don't don't mind that. I'm probably go Take it But will we take the chip though? I don't know if we will No, that will be enough to take us down. Which is a little bit of a shame, but it's fine because we've got we've got plenty of things to come in and What's gonna be better like rotten probably gonna be better because I think a snapshot might take down max guys It might take down sander konda Just whether or not we want to go into a goth hotel and maybe willow us Like it's probably better to just guarantee that we are taking the goth hotel down Uh and willow us sander konda because I think the goth has to go for trick room here Yeah, we're gonna see it. But I mean We've got no chance and now your special defense is minus two so I think it's snipe shot Definitely has a good chance to take you down And snorlax feels like probably one of the only decent things to come in here for my opponent On the goth hotel now, but we'll see Like lapis would probably be something that I'm probably want to bring in but I think the rotten kind of puts puts my opponent wearing in an email a little bit I don't know It is big bad arc and I don't know if rossum is actually trapped because If we come in after the attack, I don't know Makes sense that we're not And let's go for the max geyser. Let's see. Can we switch? Yeah, we can so that's fine. Yeah So if you're not actually attacked or on the field when the attack goes off, then you're not trapped, which is fine Um in tim day, it's gonna be like super useful here. Anyway Like what's park and I'm gonna do Could be wild charge could be a stray arc and I could be Mine is too special defense. Let's see how much this does Wow Down in one down in one the santa konda. There we go.  Yeah, there's the sands bit. This is why santa konda so good Um that sands bit ability is Really really strong. I do like it a lot I'm gonna say we could have left rotamin to take the The fire type attack in the in rainbow It's not not what's happening Uh, anyway, we'll that's our last turn of dynamics. So we will revert back to our regular size now Uh, and at least we know the arcanine slot or whatever they've got left And we're down to the last two so we should we're in a good position right now And it is Little lucky. Um, okay, but we need we need to really get rid of the arcanine Um Because the flablet isn't gonna be ideal for us to feel it I mean, we can snarl we can snarl and we can snipe shot you can And I think yeah, we snipe shot the arcanine and I think we snarl the only worry here is if Like we'll probably lose in tele on to a freeze drive. The only worry is if the arcanine's got the text Better being there we are I don't know even if a minus one like I don't think minus one um freeze drive I don't think we'll survive it. I think that'll still be enough. Oh, wow, right, right fine You see Didn't expect that. I think you have to attack the intelion there You have to go for it Like it doesn't make sense not to Um, if you've got freeze drive, just go for the intelion get rid of it. It's the one thing pressuring your arcanine right now So like to me that would be I don't know. I don't know. I don't agree with that play Like they could win the match from that point. I think they've got enough to deal with potency And our arcanine probably But now we get another snarl off so the lapras is going to be even less powerful We'll get a snipe shot into this arcanine, which is Maybe I don't know enough is it? It's it. Yeah, and I mean that that leaves my opponent again So I this is why we save freeze right now. Then I'm just gonna Hit my head against the wall but I mean players are learning so we're not going to bash on anyone too hard. I think like you know Fair play to anyone lately this guy's master like so, he knows what he's doing I just think there's like a few like I don't know like we've maxed with an intelion as well So kind of tells you that we're not going to We're not probably gonna have protect um for that reason and Freeze trying into that slot. We can't like if we switch for whatever reason if we switch Um, it rolled some C's coming in so we're not going to enjoy taking that either. Do we risk do we risk the leapstone now? We don't we'll just go We're going more consistent with the more better accurate thunderbolt should be enough with with dark pulse And maybe not maybe not lapras is the time. I don't know if this would be enough is it? Just ends on and prox, which is it? What is it wiki or? It's a lot very freeze trying This turn makes sense. You're like ignoring the intelion because it's going to go down to the sand Is it going to go down now though? Or is that the end of our sand too? That's the end of our sand too so we go down to life off damage anyway And then about being able to pick that one up and that will be it but like I said at the start of the week I did say I was going to share the team There's a sandstorm end here as well As if it does learn the intelion is going to stick around, but I mean thunderbolts going to take the lapras down whatever So there's not really much my point can do. Yeah But I did say I was going to share the team so uh this variant of the team this team may change I think it probably will The more games I have with it. We've obviously only had four games with it this week So it's it's it's still really early days, but it's been performing like super well so I think that's like a big plus for us and It's just made up of good Pokemon as well Which really helps but I think the big thing that I've been really happy about with it Is the intelion just showing how powerful it can be and like the text the tools that it's got And it's something that you should definitely look at and consider for your teams Probably I might do next week early next week. I might throw the vanilla into this if we don't go to a new team Um, no, we're not going to continue battling now We are going to create a rental team for you my friends to try out and uh, if you test this team out try it out on the ladder Post down below. Let me know in the comments what you what you think of it and teams you're renting Managed teams to share so we want We'll create this one and there we go. So um, make it public Let it go to the people here we go this few my friends And I think one thing I've probably changed like the reason I put ice punch on right here. It was uh primarily for like trick or mudsdale, which can be a bit of a problem um So there it is. Um, but I maybe we'd go fire punch on there. It gives you a little bit extra security I think uh, because we're not gonna Well, I don't know. I don't know try it out. Test it out. See what you think. Um, but that is that is it People thank you for tuning in. I hope you've enjoyed it. This has been our vg experience for this week Obviously, we'll have streams going on Tuesdays Thursdays over on twitch. It's linked down below Like I said at the start of the video Leave a like let me know that you want to see more of this content because that's the big thing for me doing More of it going forward. I'm literally not being uh Funny about it. Like I'm gonna do some vg guides. I'm quite happy doing them, but I'm not like gonna do like jump into doing bunches of this Uh content if there is not the audience there and hopefully all of you guys can understand that so Make sure you do leave a like do sub to the channel for more pokemon content And I'll see you all for another one next week. So until then friends have a great weekend Whatever you're up to uh, if you're out at events good luck and um, I'll see you all for the next one. So Take care of yourselves and bye. Bye


The president of Kutub, Yatso of Nigeria, Immanuel Iqoukun, has called on Tarabah state government and security agents to fish out the killers of more than eight persons in an ambush in Takum, local government area of the state. Addressing a press conference in Jalingo, he raised concerns over the occupation of Kutub communities by bandits and called for urgent action to be taken. He said many communities have been taken over by mercenaries, including homes, churches, and school buildings. The KYN emphasized that the unrest in the region has led to a conducive environment for criminal activities such as banditry, kidnapping, robberies, and rapes. Meanwhile, the police authority in the state says it has deployed its personnel to the area to maintain peace and order. On the 24th day of November 2023, over 12 of our people were massacred by hired assassins, bandits in different locations in Kutublan, despite the heavy presence of security men all over Takum, Usta, and Yang to special development areas. It is evident that the unrest has opened doors for various criminal groups resulting to banditry, kidnappings, robberies, rapes, and other atrocious acts in the area. The command is trying to restore peace. I will also work around the corner to make sure that those suspects involved in this act are arrested, but no arrests have been made yet. But as I'm telling you, we are doing all the best we can.


I would have never get, I don't think any one of us in this room have ever met someone who has a sniffle bird. I'm relieving my anxiety right now. Or is afraid of balloons. Oh, you're so cute. Okay, that's crazy. Oh, he's so cute. I mean, yeah, he is. Yeah, you know, let me see. Come on over here.  That's impossible. He doesn't like guys. Come on, let me see this. Okay, look. God, come put your hand up. Well, which hand? See, he wants to bite you. Why? Because one birds, they don't want to get off their favorite person. But if you really want to hold them in a safe place. How bad is the bite? Bad, here. Bad? Oh, no, I'll take it back in. There you go, you're good. Now you're fine, he's fine. You don't never cut his nails, I'm sure it wasn't wrong. It might be a bit long now. Do you think?  God, then it took my whole hand off.


Hey Mark. Hello. Hello. Hey, how's it going? Okay, how are you doing? Pretty good. Do we have a new set of wheels? I do. I'm very excited. Thank you. Yes. I don't know. I got a 2015 RAV4 LE. Wow. So it's definitely a different drive than an Elantra. A lot higher up off the ground. I'm just gonna say higher up. Yeah. But I don't know, something was wrong with my engine and I took it through my mechanic and no one could tell me what was wrong. So it was 10 years old, over 100,000 I figured. Let me just trade it in and see what I can get. Oh, you mean the Elantra I'm saying? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's enough. Yeah, right. You know, it had a really good run. I definitely was sad driving to the dealership the last time. I was like, but you know, all good things must come to an end. Yeah. Yeah. I hear you. I hear you. But dealership, did you go to? I only go to Nikkie D's. I'm a loyalist. I think they have, they don't haggle. They've got best in the valley for like the last 10 years and everything they buy is super reliable. Yeah. I like going there. I was really shocked to find out that Pleasant Journey had gone out of business. Yeah. They were, I think Nikkie D's is biggest competitor when they were still around. Exactly. Yep. Yep. Most of them. Mark is here. Hi, Mark. Most people are here. Jean is having some tech difficulties. So we are working on that. Hey, Terry. Christina's here as well. Hey, how you doing? Hi. That's Don Ripley. Hello there. Yeah. That's me. Thank you. It just took me a minute. Sorry. Hopefully it won't happen again. It's all good. Yep. We don't mark for lateness.  Yes. There you go. I'm okay. I get shamed publicly a lot. Oh, no. Oh, I'm sorry. No, not really. Oh, good. Okay. Perfect. I'm just not bothered by it, so. Ah. Well, I appreciate that. But I think this number is Jean, who I'm allowing to speak. Okay. I'm going to pause. I'm going to turn off my microphone and see if I can help Jean troubleshoot. But I would encourage you all to talk amongst yourself, but not in a way that would violate open meeting law. Maybe about the weather, which is too hot and too humid. I'm not a big fan of it personally. But let me see if I can troubleshoot. Well, Dennis, thank you very much for sending me that picture. You're very welcome. It was pretty easy to find. Okay. Good. I was hoping it wasn't buried like in the archives or something. Yeah. Well, I was able to... I categorized by event and so I was able to locate that pretty quickly. Okay. Thank you very much. Yeah, you're very welcome. I have a question. Jacqueline is having problems getting into and is there a number where we we can dial? It's usually a link that I get. But is there a number like if somebody were driving to from one place to another, they could dial in by phone and not necessarily be visually like we are right now, but they could hear us and be in the meeting. Jacqueline wants to dial because she said that her internet is acting wonky. But I don't seem to have such a number. Is that number listed on the email that Al sends out? I seem to have remembered seeing a telephone number near the bottom of that thing. Am I right about? Am I wrong? Yeah. If you pull up the invite down towards about halfway, it says or join by phone and there's US phone numbers. There's several. There you go right there. That's a whole bunch near the bottom. I got it now. I'll send the number to her. Okay. Let's see if it works. I don't think anybody's ever tried it. Hey, look at that. What's this green screen thing you're doing? I don't know. When I remember, I'm not sure what's going on, but I am so happy to be on. Will Wonders Never Seat. All right. I'm going to try to flip this. Let's see if this works. There we go. And now she's sideways. Oh, God. Wow. I am so sorry. I'm late. You're surrounded by pines and stuff. Yeah, good grief. And now a screen froze. And now a screen froze. That's okay. You know, you would think at this point, all the kinks for everything would be removed. Of course. It's not the case. No, but I guess that keeps people employed so we can be happy about all the IT folks who still have jobs because of this. There you go. Thank God for failure. Otherwise, there'd be massive unemployment everywhere. All right. Well, we could, Janet Dennis, as the vice chair, you could at least read our public call to order roll call and public comment. I'm terribly sorry, but I don't have that in front of me. Why does the public comment? Yeah, the being able from Governor Baker. I'll send it to you. We just lost Gene. And now I'm going to speak to you just like me. He wouldn't email. Oh, God. Oh, there's Ann. Oh, yeah, there's Ann. Hi, Ann. Ann. Welcome back. I think this is, should be my last meeting if it wasn't the last time. Last meeting was your last time, but you're still kind of welcome to listen. I'm just a guest. I'll listen. I don't think I should. Let me just, I'm kind of wondering if, I mean, what happened to poor Gene? Yeah, we lost her. Gene. Oh, wait. I think Hallie's on the phone with her again. Oh, okay. Welcome back. I'm back. Oh, my God. This is so stressful. Dennis, take a roll call so that you can get situated, Gene. You don't have enough things to worry about if it's all that stressful. No, I'm fine. I'm just going to talk fast. I'm fearful I'm going to lose. I don't know what's happening here, but I'm going to call the weather. Can you see me? Yes, we can see you. All right. I'm going to call the counseling agent meeting to order 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. We will now take roll fall to see if everyone's here. Terry? Terry? Yes. Hi. Okay. Okay, good. Chad? No. Jacqueline? He's trying to get on. I gave her the number to dial in. Okay. I was very curious as Ann's name is popping up on my screen. I don't know if anybody else Ann is joining us as a viewer. So actually I am going to just put you in the audience. I can find the button. Okay. Dennis? Right here. Christina? Right here. John? I'm here. Welcome, Sarah. Here. And Mark. Here. Excellent. So let me just say for starters, welcome. Delighted to see all of you and thrilled that we can finally get together and have a full council. Since we have three members this evening, we wanted to take a little time and do some introduction so that we can get better acquainted with one another. And what I'm going to ask us to do is share three things. Obviously, your name, the second thing is if you would share a skill, interest or experience that you're bringing to the council on aging, that would be important for all of us to know about. And finally, in true orientation form, because that's my background, is I'm going to ask you to share something that you enjoy so we can get to know you a little bit outside the council on aging. What do you, whether it's something you like to do, some place you like to go, just give us a little snippet, if you would. And so if we would each do that in two or three minutes, that would be awesome. So I will try to model for us what we're looking for. Again, my name is Jean Horrigan. My background is orientation. As I said, I worked at UMass for many, many years, along with parent services. And I'm somebody who's had a lot of experience with event planning, very good with logistics and organization and working with a wide range of age groups. That's something that I really enjoy. And something just is kind of an FYI. I love ice cream. So any time if any of you would be up for getting ice cream, I'd be all over that. So that's the scoop on Jean. Who would like to go next? Vice Chair could probably go next, I suppose. My name is Dennis Randall. I have, let me see, as far as background is concerned, I have, and what I bring to the organization is that I have an extensive background of many decades of involvement in newspaper journalism. And both writing and also as a photographer, I was a staff photographer for the Worcester Telegram and Gazette for quite a few years. And then I started my own business and did quite a lot of work for the Boston Globe and the Associated Press. And so there's a lot of photography there as well as writing. And let me see, what else? What do I love? I love the Cape Woods Hole, French cuisine. I think that's about it. That's it. Thank you. Everyone. Who would like to go next? I'll go. Okay, so my name's Don Ripley. Just as a point of interest, I moved to Amherst about a year and a half ago with my wife, Cindy. I'm retired. I'm a retired human resource vice president. And what I bring, what I think I bring to the organization is I'm also, I moved from Rhode Island and still Rhode Island, I still have my foot in there. I'm the president of the board of trustees of a independent assisted living and skilled nursing center that takes care of about 350 to 400 residents at a time in four different facilities. And that's about it. And what I like to do is we like to spend a lot of time hiking. And I do also do a lot of woodworking. I hope that was complete enough. Yeah. We were in Rhode Island. Smithfield is where I lived, but you know, anywhere is 45 minutes from anywhere. So that was born and raised in Rhode Island myself. So welcome to Amherst. Yeah, thank you. I grew up in Lincoln, so. Oh, yeah. Good. Nice. Who's the next brave soul? I'll be the next victim. I'll go. Oh, go ahead, Terry. Okay, Terry's up. Hi. I moved to Amherst a couple of years ago, and I volunteer at the Amherst Senior Center. So that's how I got involved with the council on aging. And I worked for Verizon in every clerical position available. And the telephone company has a pioneer project. And we make little cloth huggabares. And that's what I do in my spare time. And we deliver them to the hospitals for the children. And that's it. Here we are. Excellent. Thanks, Terry. Mark. Did we lose everybody? You want to do that? Okay. Hi. My name is Mark. I'm new to the board. And let's see. My backbone is basically mostly computers and media. I worked for 22 and 40 when I was in college. So let's see. I bring project management and a lot of computer background. And basically, I enjoy history, and I enjoy reading, and I enjoy doing a lot of research. So that's sort of my hobbies. Excellent. Yep. We'll be able to put those skills to good use for us to show, Mark. I can go. My name is Sarah McCombe. I returned to Amherst about a year and a half ago. I lived here for 10 years, many years ago. I'm an industrial engineer. That's my professional expertise. I've been a professor for the last almost 25 to 30 years. And different faculties. I was at UMass when we were here before. But I'm retiring now. So this is my next chapter. And I'm looking for ways to get involved in the community. And I'm really excited about some of the things that are possible with the Center on Aging. Is there anything you'd like to share with us in terms of what you enjoy? Oh, sure. I love to travel. I love good food. And good food could be anything from really good street food to fine dining. It just has to be good. And I'm excited that as we're coming out of COVID, we can start traveling again and seeing the world. So that's what about me. Excellent. Thank you, Sarah. I guess that leads me next. I am a post retiree from the University of Massachusetts. I'm a post retiree worker, meaning I'm still working. I work two part-time positions as an instructor at a community college and a case manager in a nonprofit. I enjoy gardening. I enjoy painting, history, and museums. And I am a cookie monster. And I see we have various technology persons, but I'm not a programmer or anything like that. I'm a teacher of technology, how to use technology efficiently. And that's it. Wonderful. Thank you, Christina. Hailey? Yes. Well, I do want to point out there's a phone number here that I'm hoping is Jacqueline's. So she wants to jump in at any point. Otherwise, I'm probably going to mute the person. But yeah. But anyway, my background, that is her phone number. Okay, good. I was hoping that I didn't promote somebody who had no business being promoted. So that's good. Yeah, Jacqueline, you can go first. I'll go after you. Okay. So my background is a lot of senior center work, having been the director here for about a year and a half, and then prior to that, about three years in Bernardsden. And then before that was just human service work, you know, Craig's Doors, the Survival Center. So that's my background. I majored in psych and majored in philosophy, which definitely comes in handy working with people quite a bit. So I think that keeps me grounded in a lot of ways and gives me a good sense of humor. What do I like? I like craft beer, I like Vietnamese food and I may, through crime, junkie. I'm Jacqueline Smith Crookes. And I'm a return me to the Amherst area. I was away for almost 20-something years and have been back almost 20 years. I retired from doing work at Harvard, the School of Medicine, and working around issues of diversity and community. I have a passion for helping to empower people, helping people empower themselves, advocate for themselves, educate themselves, and a holistic approach to health maintenance, not only for other people, but also for myself. I like having spending time engaged in the contemplative. I used to be yoga and now I've settled for reading and relaxation and contemplative lifestyling. One of the things I also have a side passion for is making all things new. I volunteered with Habitat for Humanity and served on the board for a while. And I got the biggest kick out of being able to see things made from throwaways. And that has been with people as well, the discards and the disinherited.  I enjoy art, lectures, poetry, dancing, among other things. Traveling, I really have spent a little time traveling over the borders, Mexico. And I especially loved going to African countries and Caribbean countries and living, doing home stays, living where the people live, and finding out how they live not as onlookers, but being active participants in their daily lives. And I think that's enough for now. Thank you for sharing. That was wonderful. I have to say I learned a lot. So thank you. More to come and at some point in the future when we are able to meet in person. I think that's just going to go a long way in helping us get to know one another even better. And we'll do our best on Zoom until then. All right. Oh, I forgot to tell you, I am a grandmama. I'm Nima by my three grandchildren by my daughter and I have a grandson who will be two in September. He lived in the Boston area. The others are in Miami. Excellent. Excellent. Well, I do feel alive since you brought up grandchildren. I am the proud grandma of one beautiful granddaughter who's 20 months and cute as a button if I do say so myself. I know the field. I know the field. I describe her as pure joy, but enough on that for now. Hopefully you all got a copy of the agenda and I am going to reorder our agenda. So I hope you're all good with that. But I thought in fairness to our new members, I want to give you a little grounding. So we're going to start with Haley's director's update and then we will be tackling old and new business. So hopefully that doesn't screw everybody up. But Haley, if you could kind of bring us up to speed with what's going on. Happy to. So June statistics. I figured I would just summarize them. Make it a little easier and save time. So our check in count for the month was up by 40%. We had 840 people sign in at the senior center. That's a duplicated number. So it'll include people who came multiple times during that span. But that was really nice. We had about 600 the month prior. So that's a nice healthy boost for us. I'm assuming part of that is, you know, we didn't do as much programming in May. There were holidays. There was multiple graduations in town. And that does tend to take away from the traffic to the senior center when people don't want to go downtown. Our average daily was 38 people. The people that we served, we served almost 300 individual people, which is up 30% from the month before. So again, really nice trend of increased activity. The programming attendance was up about 90%. So we had almost 600 people attend various programs throughout the course of the month, which is amazing. Our rides have more than doubled from what they were last month. We did 62 rides, the majority of which were grocery shopping, which is kind of a surprise to me. But that has pretty consistently been the number one need that we're seeing. And but I'm really, I'm pleased that people are utilizing the service. You know, Rob is very happy to be doing rides. He loves connecting with people when they're in the van. Maureen similarly is very enthusiastic about booking rides for the Silver Shuttle. And we have had some people say that they wouldn't be able to get to various doctor's appointments if they didn't have this van. So it clearly is meaning a really critical need in the community. So that's, that's kind of it in a nutshell, you know, that the ride service is the newest thing that we're offering. And, you know, if we already have 62 rides for the month of June, I only see that steadily increasing. That's not likely to go down, especially once people start being comfortable with using it, and they build a rapport with our driver and our dispatcher. So those are all really good signs. Sorry. Just for the clarification for new folks. So the Silver Shuttle is a new program. And did it start, it started in the middle of May? I think we started it the start of May. Yeah. So and if you don't know, I will back up and people can always stop me for questions. We needed a van service. We were able to acquire a retired PVTA van, which is what we use to drive. So that comes with a wheelchair lift. So we can take two individuals in wheelchairs and six passengers. Heel and walkers can also use the van easily. We're using currently ARPA funds to pay our driver. And we operate three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, nine to three. So the hours are limited. And one thing that I can kind of highlight, I was working with PVTA on a grant application. So I say, I, they did most of the legwork on it. But if we are successful in getting these funds, it would mean the ability to operate a five day a week service. So we would have Monday through Friday rides. And PVTA is also looking at doing an Amherst to Greenfield Connection. So for people who, because we currently are just serving Amherst, Hadley and North Hampton, the people who need that ride to Franklin County would then have an option. So I really want to thank Paul Burns for reaching out about that opportunity. You know, hopefully his ears are ringing now, because if we are successful in getting that grant, it'll greatly increase our service capacity. And not only will we'll be able to do five days a week, we can hire another part time driver, we can hire another transportation dispatcher to book rides. So it would really help round out the service. And I wanted to, because I was asked, give a brief plug to Highland Valley Elder Services, they are looking for board of director nominations. So it doesn't have to be you, it might be someone you know. But if anyone's interested, they should reach out by the end of September. And I can, if you have any more questions about it, I don't want to take up too much time at this meeting, but you can let me know. They do this pretty much every year. They look for various councils on aging to be a part of their board of directors. And it's a nice way to kind of have some more influence or have some more connection to Highland Valley in a way that might benefit us from a policy and program standpoint. So that's my plug for that. Any questions so far on anything? Cool. I want to talk about events. So we have quite a number of things coming up. Looking ahead to the fall, we're going to be doing another volunteer fair on the town common. That was a pretty big success. And the idea behind doing it in the fall is that we can then incorporate students and get a bit more traction. It was a really great way to bring together local human resource organizations and also town committees who were looking for volunteers when we first did this event back in May, May or June. It was the first time that the town had ever put on a volunteer fair, so we got to bricks and ground there. And we'll do that again this fall. We're also going to be doing a health fair, pulling together some various health resources for individuals. We'll be doing that in October, tie in with open enrollment. When people are looking to go on Medicare or change their plans or anything health related, we'll be doing that fair in October. And then the big one that we do, community safety day, will be happening next month. Saturday, August 12th from 10 to 2 at Mill River. I have put together a pretty great lineup. The fire department, the police department, Crest, Office of DEI, Public Health, Senior Services, DA's office, UMass PD, Hampshire County Sheriff, Amherst College PD, everyone will be on site. I think Tapestry Health will be there as well just to promote public safety, public safety awareness, education, give people an opportunity to get them to meet their first responders. If you don't know, about a third of all 911 calls are for older adults. So to me, it's really important that people have an opportunity to know someone that might be showing up at their house in the event of an emergency. A great activity to bring grandkids to, to bring the whole family. We will have a face painter, a DJ. We've got a touch of truck. So all the public safety vehicles will be there.  We'll have comfort dogs. The fire department will show how they use the jaws of life. So they'll actually be cutting up car doors. They demonstrate how they use canine dogs. There's car seat inspection. There's a lot. And Lavera Cruzana will be our food vendor. So we'll have good food as well. It's just a really fun event for all ages. We'll have File of Life on hand to distribute to anyone who wants it.  We have an example of an emergency bag that we'll have on display for people. I've got some senior center swag. Last year we had them like 300 people, 375, somewhere in that ballpark. So I'd like to see that same number, if not more. It's a really good way to just get our name out there, get our, you know, who we are and touch base with people. And it's fun. A lot of fun. So we'll be doing that the second weekend in August. And, oh, the other thing was I was on mass appeal to talk about it. I'll take your question in just a second Mark, but, you know, another publicity for the senior center. So we're getting some eyes on it, which is really exciting that people are paying attention to the things that we're doing. And what was your question? Just a quick one. Is it possible to have a either a group of us from the COA there that day? Some people have already committed. I know Jean will be there. Dennis will be taking pictures. So yeah, anyone who wants to come you just show up. I will be on site at about 8am. You can come closer to 9 or 10. But yeah, I would love to see people come and, you know, just even if you just want to hang out and get some good food and enjoy some music, that's perfectly fine. Thank you. I would encourage everybody to go if you can if you're in town. It really is. It was a lot of fun last year. Yes, I think we're going to have even more people like I did catch your segment. Haley, you did an awesome. Thank you.  Yeah. Yeah, I got a rep Eastern mass whenever possible, you know. Jean, I'm sorry to interrupt. Is it possible for us to actually have a table there? Let me just be really clear. I created the event. I am the founder. I don't like to brag, but it's our event. So we have a table. We have two tables, a tent. We have everything. But yeah, this is a senior center driven experience. Yeah, this possibility. You might be three tables Haley, but I got sick total. Don't even worry about it. I'll jam on full of stuff. The other event that we're doing our ice cream socials. I'll take your question first, Christina. You're on mute. Is there all of these things in our newsletter? Is there? Yeah, it was there. Yeah, it was originally slated for June, but that weekend was horrible. We had like a ton of storms. I ended up postponing it. It will be up. We'll be doing some more press releases. We'll be putting up the video from mass appeal up on our socials. And then the police department programs, you know, on those like electronic sign boards, they'll put like community safety day such and such a day. So yeah, we definitely do. Because yeah, I want a good turnout. I like like to have a lot of people there. Ice cream socials are happening every Friday from one to two at the senior center. I thank you to the friends group because we recently bought a deep chest freezer. And now we will be able to store the five gallons of ice cream that Barstow's Dairy Farm is donating to us. So big shout out to Barstow's. Thank you for the ice cream. We didn't. We were just using residential freezers and it definitely is not enough for five gallons of ice cream. So we've greatly expanded our capacity. The socials are nice because I'll usually reach out to various other departments in town and try to have, you know, town official come and connect with with our seniors with people coming to the center. Obviously, you are all more than welcome to come for one or all have our much ice cream you can handle. So that'll be going on till the last Friday in August, really. Other big things. So we are getting a new patio. They've now done the all the concrete is laid. So once they're finished, we will have a beautiful new patio on the side of room 101, which is that build that room that's on the Johnny side of the building. There will be an awning. There will be tables and chairs. It will look beautiful. We'll finally have a really nice dedicated outdoor space by the bank center, which I'm so thrilled about. And I, I hope that they're finishing up soon. I don't believe it will take, you know, I think by the end of the summer, we can expect to have that up. I would be surprised if it took much longer, but, but we'll see. And speaking of new buildings, just to remind everyone and for anyone tuning in who does not know that on Monday, July 17, the Amherst town council will be meeting to consider the use of the town's remaining ARPA funds. One of the things that the town manager has suggested is to renovate our kitchen, do an exercise space, kind of redo the first floor of the bank center to, you know, we're not realistically going to get a new senior center, but we can get some upgrades made to the building and make it a lot easier to conduct programs. It'll make it a lot more welcoming. It'll make it a much better space and certainly more usable, which was a big thing that I had talked with him about and he's been very supportive of. So, COA put out a letter. Anyone watching call your town counselor. Call either the at-large counselors or, you know, reach out to your individual district counselor and let them know that you think this is a wonderful, wonderful idea. We are so happy that the town manager has put this as a goal for those ARPA funds, because if we make a big enough wave, I think we'll get these, you know, this use of funds, you know, I know that several town counselors, you know, in addition to the town manager have voiced their support for this. So I think we just really want to add to that and really bring it home that this is something that we want and would be really good for the community. Because again, there's over 5,500 older adults who live in Amherst and the current senior center is not the best haylard to serve that 5,500. So we say that's put wildly hayly. Yes. Put democratically while I'm on camera. No, I think, you know, I think people know that it needs to be changed and I think this is a perfect opportunity for those funds and Paul has listened and has been very supportive. So yeah. So I encourage all of you to share that support and tell your counselors so that when they go into that meeting, they know for a fact or you can join them. I think it'll be hybrid either, I think they start at six o'clock, so it'll be in the town room or virtually on zoom and you can make a public comment. So either one would be fine. And that's about all I had to say. I want to definitely at our next meeting review the agent dementia action plan that was developed by the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission. So they did a really lengthy but very detailed report on the kind of the state of aging and aging in Amherst. There are numerous action plan items, some of which we're already doing. So we can happily check those off. But there are several different domains that I think we can best target, you know, social participation, technology, transportation is one that we can certainly have been working on and can continue to work on. So once we've had a time to have a meeting as a group once and then, you know, get acquainted with one another, I'd like to steer our attention to that action plan next time. And that's all I had. Okay. Again, just for for Dawn, Mark and Sarah, we will get you copies of the agent dementia plan. Actually, maybe we could try to do that sooner rather than later, because it's fairly lengthy. So you can plow through that prior to our next meeting. And I can't remember are the the action items, some sections are prioritized? Are there there's a lot, to be honest, there's a lot of action items. Like for example, if we have a section on transportation, there might be three subsections. And then in those substructions, there could be like six or seven action items. So to think that we can do them all is probably a stretch. But we can, you know, we can cross up the ones we're already doing and then look to, I'd say recommend, you know, easy wins at first, and then kind of branch off as we get more progressively in depth with what we need to do. Because there's a lot to tackle. Yeah. But we'll definitely get the the full report out to you so you can plow through it prior to our next meeting when we can talk about action items. I just want to go backwards here. You were like plowing ahead, Haley, so I didn't want to. I'm on a roll today. Yeah, they are. I would like to make a pitch for us to volunteer to support these programs. Certainly safety day. It would be awesome. Again, for anybody who's around, if you can help staff the table or just, you know, be around, that would be wonderful. It is a lot of fun. And it, you know, there's something for everyone there. So again, you're gonna, I learned a lot last year, and I'm sure I'll learn even more this year. So if anybody can join us for that, please, please let us know. We will be delighted to have you. Yeah. And you don't have to stay the whole time unless you want to.  Don't give all your time all at once. But Jean's right, there is something for everyone. If you if you have a couple hours to spend. The ice cream social, I thought it would be really nice if, as council on aging, we picked a date that would be kind of the council on aging ice cream social. And I was just wondering if there was a date that would work well with folks, I appreciate not everybody will probably be able to do this due to your other obligations. But for folks, for the rest of us, what do you think I thought it would be fun if we came together as as a group for ice cream. So me for social social reasons and also for consuming ice cream. Yeah, you got to have ice cream while you're there. It sounds like a nice idea to finally do something to finally get together for real. Yes. Are you talking in addition to the Fridays, Jean? No. Pick one of the Friday dates. And so that could be are you doing other advertising for those Haley? I mean, we definitely can. If you pick one that's in August, then I would have more time to publicize like we could do a little press release in the Gazette and I can put it in her column. So honestly, August would probably be your better date. Like if you wanted to do the 11th or the 18th, that gives me ample time to get that in the paper and put it up on Facebook. Yeah, I was kind of thinking August just because we're halfway through July already. So what do folks think? I agree. We're looking at the 11th of August for an ice cream social. Wouldn't it be better to wait one week after the safety day? It's just going to be a busy day. I know. The 11th is my anniversary, though. Want to go for the 18th? Yeah, I'd more like to be able to be there on the 18th of the 25th. Excellent. Let me know if anyone has, if you need non-dairy or low sugar ice cream, so that I can get it. What will the hours be? It's one to two. One to two on the 18th. In room 101. Plugging it in right now. Awesome. Okay. Wonderful. Well, as many of us who can attend, that would be tremendous. It would be fun for us and it will be wonderful for our community to connect with them as well. Maybe if we're really lucky, the patio will be done and we can sit outside, keep my fingers crossed. Yeah, that would be tremendous. The other thing I just wanted to reiterate is our pitch to our town counselors. This is a golden opportunity for us to get some serious upgrades, which I think will go a long way in attracting people into bangs and for folks who are utilizing bangs, feeling good about it. And also the addition of exercise room, which we don't currently have. So as Hailey mentioned, we did do a joint letter out to all the town counselors from the Council on Aging for all of you who graciously gave me your permission to list your names. I just want to say I've done individual letters to my counselors and my at-large folks and been trying to encourage other people in my network to do the same. So if you already have, I thank you. If you haven't yet done so, if you can possibly make the time, shoot them an email, I think it will really make a difference. I think they need to hear from us and know that we're concerned and care about this. And I do think it would be great if anybody is able to attend the meeting Monday evening. Unfortunately, I cannot commit to that, but Unfortunately, I'll be out of state. So I did send in my letter a couple of days ago. I emailed the letter and the public comment. Awesome. Thank you. Mark. I was planning on watching the meeting online, but I don't know whether or not I should say anything. This is a question to everybody. Do I recognize myself as somebody from the COA or just as a person who is the audience? I think there's, I don't say any reason why you couldn't. I mean, you're already identified as a COA member on the town website, so it's not. And I've sent the emails to everybody, so they're probably, they might recognize the name anyway. I just don't want to get anybody in trouble. No.  I think it's great to thank you for going because that does help a lot. Okay. Again, I think it's just another, it just reinforces that, you know, we care. We're on it. We, you know, we appreciate their support. So hopefully it makes it harder. It makes it easier to say yes. So and if anyone else's schedule changes and you're able to attend, I heartily encourage you to do so. I'm really hoping that they come through with money because that would This be the the 17th at Town Hall at what, seven o'clock? Yeah. Here, I'll check the town website because I think they have a post already. 630. 630. Okay. Town Council meeting. Basically, what is that? Second floor? The main room, right? Oh, yeah. It'll be in the town room or virtually, you know, you don't have to physically be there, but it'll be at 630. Actually, I'm kind of thinking it might be a good idea to actually be physically present as much as humanly possible. It gets their attention. Yep. It's been my experience. Yeah. Yeah. That would be great, Dennis. Thank you. If actually, if I'll ask as all of you as many as possible to show up physically at the at the town room at 630 on Monday and let them see us standing there. It reminds me of something that happened a long time ago. There was an unusually difficult neighborhood in Worcester that was having a lot of heavy crime problems and a father and son janitor team from Holy Cross, from the College of the Holy Cross, decided to gather up the neighbors and go to go to City Hall and complain at a City Council meeting and members of the City Council and the mayor were so shocked. And it's basically spurred a really serious cleanup of the neighborhood as a result. It worked really, really well. And I think if they see us standing there, it's a lot harder to say no. Yeah. And that's also how the Hadley Senior Center got their new building. People went to town meetings and they advocated. That's right. So there's a valuable lesson there. I think we should keep it in mind. Absolutely. Mark? I just had a question for Hallie. Is it possible to maybe make up a little flyer that we can pass out to everybody that goes into the Senior Center about the meeting? Because I noticed the other day I was talking to a lot of people and they didn't seem to know about it. So I was like, maybe we could... I can do some for like, I can probably have that ready by like Friday, midday, and then we can hand them out like our lunches on Monday and... You just have it available on that table and then, you know, yeah, because it's just something they can walk away with. Oh, definitely. And I actually... I did go in front of a couple classes to talk about the meeting that that was happening. And I know Julia had sent out an email to all our volunteers. Yeah, we got that. So yeah. Thank you. Yeah. But I do think something in writing is a good reminder because we all have a lot going on. Yeah. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you. All right. All right. Now we're going to jump to old business. And something that we desperately need is a new secretary. Terry has graciously been covering us for... I don't know how long. I'm sure to you, Terry, it seems like an eternity, but a year and a half. Who's casting? I'm casting the pen, as it were. So could you just briefly let folks know? I mean, I'm assuming most folks know what it entails, but a quick overview of what you do, how much time it takes. I take the minutes of what Paley is talking about and who's here, who's not here, who's a guest. And then I type it up and send it out to everybody. So you don't copy the agenda word for word you add in. So you kind of like typing your own new letter about what was said and what is happening, et cetera. Okay. And I will help you go through it if you're interested. And I can, you know, work with you to make sure you understand what to do. Excellent. All right. They have three weeks to type it and send it out before the next meeting so everybody can look at it. Yeah. One thing you could also do is you could have your laptop open and just be typing as we're talking. And then you've already done it by the end of the meeting. If you're taking your own notes, you can just share them. If nobody wants to fill the void, may I recommend that we just take turns? We as in the council, just take turns amongst yourself. You know, maybe one person does it every two months and then you rotate. That way it's not falling on any particular person. But again, I mean, if you'd have your laptop and you just take notes as we're having the meeting, you can be done literally by 6.35 and just send it to me. And that's at the end of it. I might interject and I might be off, but I thought that there had been some discussion trying to get somebody to get paid to do that when I came aboard a couple or three years ago so that there would be consistency in the taking of the minutes. I would have to check with Paul because I don't know that we can pay for something like that. I've not personally heard of any other councils doing that. And then it becomes the question of how do we pay that person? We don't have any funding. It was a discussion with the leadership team about somehow compensating the person who takes minutes for the sake of consistency. And to my recollection, because things changed so much in our lives with COVID, the focus shifted away from that. But I think that's one of the things that was being advocated for. Okay, yeah. I mean, I can definitely check with him because I, like I said, I'm just not sure legally how that works. If you're a volunteer committee, I don't know if you can be paid, but I will certainly ask him and find that information out. And that might be a good solution if we can identify a source of funds for that. So yeah, I'll check in with him and see what he has to say. In the meanwhile, is there anybody who would like to be able to add this to your resume? Another wonderful experience. I'd be willing to take it on for the next two months. And if we're going to go with the rotation, I'll start. Awesome. Thank you so much, Dawn. I think the rotation is a rather good idea. Oh, right. Because it's hard. Everybody has their own style. That's true. You know, and I guess it's people are familiar with my notes because I've been doing it for a year and a half. But like if Don did it for two months, he might have a different style. I might not add some things or add too much. And then say Jean did it, you know, her style differently. So I think that's kind of hard. Yeah. But whatever works. And the other thing is that I think seniors get there. It may not be monetary pay, but there's compensation for doing providing services to the town on their taxes, a tax reduction. Yeah, if you're doing your tax work off program. It's been so long since we've discussed it and the whole committee was new to me. So I checked it away some place and I can't tell you verbatim what happened. The council on aging is different than the senior tax work off program. They, you know, yeah, it should really fall on council members to take the minutes. You know, that's part of being on a committee is that you may have to do roles like that. You know, I personally, like I said, I've just never heard of another council on aging doing it that way, either through tax work off or people being paid, you know, if you're a volunteer committee, you know, you are all here volunteering your time in the service of the town seniors. And that requires doing things like minutes on occasion or, you know, showing up to meetings and volunteering at the center, those sorts of things. But you know, I think Terry, just to your point about different styles, I mean, at the end of every meeting, we have to approve the minutes. So even if folks have different styles, you can make an addition or you can make a subtraction. And I think it would, it would be just a good stop gap way to ensure that everybody's taking a fair share of what is usually people's least favorite job on any committee. Yeah. You know, answer any questions or help you do it or whatever. And for clarity purposes, Terry, you're going to cover us this month and Dawn will pick it up August, September. Correct? Terry, if that's what you would like. Yeah, I would like to not have my first meeting being something I haven't already. Yes. I know it would be high. Well, thank you for stepping up. It is appreciated. And Dennis too, before we, you know, make sure that's in the minute. I'll do it after, I'll do it after Dawn. Oh, Dennis. I'm right. Thank you. As, as, as Terry says, there'll be a difference in style. I do the minutes of for the, for the friends as the secretary. And I, so I've got my way of doing things. But ultimately, the most important thing is, is that they be approved. And get timely manner so that anybody who's got any objections can actually have, if they've got corrections or amplifications, that they get them in before the meeting so that we can just move the whole thing through smoothly, which is what we do with the friends. Right. That's it. Great. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Thank you for everything you've done, Terry. It's a year and a half. I thought you did a fine job. Thank you very much, Dennis. It's appreciated. Yes. Yeah, it's appreciated. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, people. All right. Next, under old business, we have our annual calendar. And that was something that we introduced at the last meeting. And I made some changes to the draft that I wanted to share with all of you and see if there were other things, if the changes looked fine, if there were other things that we shouldn't be adding at this point. But as I said last month, I, I like to know kind of what direction we're going in. I feel like this is going to help us be much more organized in terms of planning what we need to do so that when things are coming up and event is coming up that we've, you know, planned for previous meeting. So it's month by month. And Haley, can you move it up on the screen a little bit? Moving up. Up. So we can see more. If we, oh, so you want me to just move it down? Keep January through that because I was trying to make it so that the font was nice and big. Yeah. Okay. All right. Actually, let's go, yeah, go down. Let's look from July on since that's where we're at right now. So this summer would, you know, we'll be doing the ice cream social that will be August. We've got community safety day, which we've already talked about, and the age and dementia action plan review. This is a huge, a huge plan. And so I have listed the age and dementia action plan review for two times throughout the year. Cause I feel like it would be who of us we, I don't think we can tackle the entire thing in one meeting. So my suggestion was to do it twice a year. Again, if folks have other thoughts or suggestions with regards to that, I welcome hearing them. Anybody have anything right now? I don't know how we do this because I can't see you all now. I can see people. So if you raise your hand, I can definitely on my screen. And Mark has his hand up. Okay to speak. Yeah. Oh, okay. I did have a request from somebody who wants to sort of stay anonymous. So they asked me if they could put a suggestion to the council on agent forward. So this is not me. This is somebody else asking. They would like to know whether or not the council on agent could have, and I don't know if it's possible, like quarterly open meetings where people from the senior community could come and voice concerns and opinions. And that was voiced, I think, because they felt they weren't comfortable. I guess this person's not comfortable approaching maybe Haley or somebody else. They just wanted to know whether or not there was a possibility of doing something like this. So I'm throwing it out there. And I want to throw in possibly, is it possible to have a like a suggestion box available where people could, I guess if they want to be anonymous, they could write something, put it in the box, and that Haley could take her time to go through them and address them, that sort of thing. I can answer both those questions. So yes, to the suggestion box, I will order that when I get a chance. And so the quarterly open meeting, every one of our meetings is open to the public. So we do a public comment period at the beginning of every meeting people can ask. Well, the board won't respond. So if they're thinking about like a dialogue, that's not how these meetings typically work, but they can make a comment, they can raise concerns, you can do that at any one of our meetings. If it's virtual or in person, there's always that public comment period. We usually just skip past it because there's never, or at least very rarely, are there, is there anyone who like raises their hand from the public? But yes, to answer that person's question, absolutely every meeting is an opportunity to do exactly that. I just think, well, I know this particular person was, I wouldn't just say gunshot, I just put it that way. And I don't know they wanted to be involved in this meeting, that we have our meetings, especially when we do. Oh, sorry, let me back up. I'm sorry, go ahead. Public comment, people can express up to three minutes, and then that's it. So they wouldn't be like, it wouldn't be like you as a panelist where you're on screen the whole time, the public comment period, you just say your thoughts, your views up to three minutes. And then that's it. Then when the public comment period's over, they would go back into the audience. So maybe I think that's what you were trying to get at. I think that's what they were looking for. I'm not, I wasn't overly sure. So I thought I'd throw it out and see what you guys come up with and what your thoughts were. I just want to be able to say the person that I mentioned it, that this was aired out to the meeting. Mark, do you think if we do an ice cream social is designated for COA, that would help meet the need if folks aren't comfortable? I think so because, and actually it's even better because now it's not just a focused meeting. Then there's some little communication and there's activity going tied to it. So it might actually, it might actually in quotes break the ice. I'm sorry, go ahead, Mark. No, I just, I think I agree with Gene where maybe activity, you know, but if people know that there's like the people from the Council on Aging are going to be there, or at least a couple of representatives or whatever, just so that they could, you know, voice and bounce some ideas off or whatever. Now everybody's comfortable with everybody. We all have different personalities. So I'm just trying to think of ways that we can have a communication back and forth. Yeah, yeah. Can I? Okay, go ahead. I'm sorry. Go ahead.  I think you were next. Okay. Thank you very much. When, when Gene, when you raised the idea when you were talking about the ice cream social, I was in the back of my mind, I was thinking that it would also present a really, really nice opportunity for some, some to do two different things. And one would be, it would present a really sweet opportunity for Haley and a couple of other people to present all the things that the Senior Center does in terms of the classes that are being offered and all the other activities so that it would be a little bit more structured and also that it would also open the lines of communication between anyone in the audience who would have any questions or suggestions on what happens at the Senior Center, especially now that it would appear that the structure of the Senior Center is changing a little bit with the kitchen and, and these, these other things. And that even though it's even in the words of Paul Backelman, these things are essentially stopgap measures that, that these are things that, that will be happening or we hope will be happening with the ARPA phones. And, and so maybe an ice cream social that would be open to the public and that would have let's say 15 or 20 minutes of slightly more structured presentation and feedback would be kind of a nice thing to add because the feeling sometimes that I get is that I'd like, I'd like a better explanation of the things that are going on. Yeah, you know, because I do know that they are going, but I'd like a better idea. So that's, that's my two cents on it. I know that Christina has her hands up. Yeah, go for it Christina. Yes. Did I hear you say Haley that this volunteer fair was going to be in September and now I see October on this? No, I'm sorry, I might have misspoke. It was definitely going to be in October because UMass starts later now because they go later in the spring. We want to make sure the students are there and that October will be the prime time for that. Okay, all right, so I'll change that on my calendar. We have a date for the volunteer fair. The other thing is that we, it says specifically ice cream social with Council on Aging and that supposedly which one of these, the one in July and August is the one where we're going to disseminate information as Dennis just told, just expressed. That should happen in August. So this is a calendar just of like all of our regularly scheduled events. So it'll have like, you know, holiday programming for December. The socials happen in July and August, but I really like the idea of doing the focus one in August. I would even throw out, assuming people want to volunteer, you could have COA office hours at the bank center, you know, if there's someone who's interested in just, you know, it can just be a couple hours once a month. We could set you up in probably the bubble room. So it's one on one, a little bit more confidential. And then that way, anybody can come in. And I think that would probably be from what I'm hearing more appropriate than the public comment bit. That might be a better way to get that one on one with people, assuming anyone wants to volunteer. That's a great idea, because I think this person came to me because they knew I was just getting on the board. So they that might be good to let people know that we have sort of somebody there that they can talk to or whatever. Oh, yes. Awesome. I think that it sounds like a good way to involve people while conducting surveys would be good. There's something that seems so participatory. When I joined the committee or the council, I joined what I thought was senior services. And one of the aspects of senior services was the senior center. And to find out instead of engaging in guesswork about what might be satisfactory, hearing voices, at least I think starting out giving it a try. It sounds like a very fine way to create a space for participatory programming for seniors. And the services and programming may not necessarily be the same thing. And we can find out. Right. And I think that's a great idea all of it. And I suggest for December, because we're doing Ice Cream Social in August. So in December, why don't we do hot chocolate and cookies? We can do that. We can do a whole hot chocolate bar with lots of different toppings and make it look really nice. And stop that. It has to be fancy. And at some point, I want to get industrial commercial blenders so we can make milkshakes and smoothies. So I really want that kitchen, because I have a lot of food ideas. But I will diet. Thanks a lot. Make some healthy stuff too. Healthy can be tasty. I like Don, thanks for volunteering on that. I'll connect with you. Because it basically just can't be like the third Thursday or the second Tuesday. But I'll email you. And we can advertise it in our September, October newsletter. Because that's the next one that's going to come out. I would also be amenable to doing it, I think. One thing that when Mark was talking, it just struck me. And that is, we need to raise the visibility of the council on aging. I think a lot of people don't know who they are. They don't know how to. And so us being present at various events around town, I think is really critical. And I'm going to take a line from you, Hailey. I think we need some swag. We need swag. I got rid of all the cups. So I bought cups with our logo, color changing, sunglasses, and frisbees. I sold blind sell. We gave them away. But all of them at the 4th of July. Everyone's walking around with a pink senior center cup and bright blue senior center sunglasses. It was amazing. I'm sorry. I jumped in. Can I speak for a second? Yes. You froze. Oh, okay. I just wanted to ask, is there a possibility of either getting like name tags for the COA members or t-shirts that say I'm like COA member so that people can visually at these events can actually pick us out? I don't know if that's good or bad. We can. We could, or Dennis could bring it up at the next Friends meeting that we want to get some specifically designated t-shirts or name tags. We should probably do the same for the Friends. Hailey, how easy is it to get those lanyards that you got? So easy. Four in print is like it's so easy. But they're very hard to see the lanyards when people wear them in, because I go to a lot of conferences and it's very hard to see a lanyard versus a name tag. Okay. Go ahead. We need more, I think a name tag is important, but we need something like a shirt or a hat that's going to be easy to make us more visible. A lanyard, unless you've got great eyes and if God forbid the event isn't going to see anything. Yeah. So we need to raise our visibility. I just wanted to throw that out there so people can be thinking. And if you have any great ideas, we can pass them along, but we're going to circle back. We need some swag, Hailey. I'm on it. All right. I'm going to keep plowing through this calendar. September. We've got the Amherst Block Party, which again is a huge event in town. Key wonderful opportunity for COA, again, to be visible, to have a table. So we need not only volunteers to staff the table, but we'll need stuff to distribute. So I invite you all to give thought to what would make sense for COA to have at a table at a block party or other events. Mark? Christina had her hand up first. I'm sorry. I can only see one little person. That's why I'm keeping you in check. Don't worry about it. We already know that and she's helping you. The thing that I think people really like hats. I know I do. I don't care. I get t-shirts from everywhere and I don't like wearing t-shirts that say things. I feel like what Dawn said, you're like a target. I just rather not have words on my body. I don't like tattoos or anything like that either. I love hats. I think people like hats. I think people like those little tiny things that you put counsel on aging and you stick them on your refrigerator or whatever reason individuals love that kind of stuff. You pick it up. People love pens. Just things that they, small things, but for them it's meaningful and people love frisbees. You might have a young family that has children, a senior that has grandchildren, and they go, oh frisbee, can I take two for my grandson? Those kind of things. Are you a baseball hat or like a mesh hat person? What style do you like? I like the mesh type. I love those. I have quite a few. Dennis, he has his on. I should just grab it and put it on. I didn't mean to not support you for your t-shirts. We can have a few of those too. I'm not into it, but we could have a few of those too. It doesn't bother me. As long as we have something visible for them. The other thing I was going to ask is, I don't even know if we have one. Do we have like a banner that we can put on the front of a table? Actually, do we have that available? It's a very tasteful hunter green with a lighter green accent. We have that. I would also encourage people, as they're thinking about swag, to think about the types of events that we do. If it's an outdoor event, we probably want those frisbees. We probably want summer e-things, sunscreen packets versus if we're just distributing something at a health fair where maybe we want to do little tiny first aid kits or those jar grippers, magnifying glasses, all that kind of stuff. You can definitely think about it in terms of what event we should brand. Then ultimately, it'll come down to price no matter what, but most of it's pretty inexpensive. Are there any other hands, Haley? No. Okay. All right. The other thing that we have in September is the AARP grant ideas. It's the, I'm going to totally blank on what is AARP. Everybody knows AARP, right? Yeah. Okay. They put out a grant and I discovered, I learned about it last year too late. It was like two weeks before it was due. The grant, I believe, I've got to go back and pull the guidelines. We obviously missed it for last year, but I want to put it on our calendar because this is, as far as I'm concerned, free money. There's lots of wonderful things we could do with this.  Is this it, Gene? Just real quick. Yes. Yes, it is the community challenge. Want us to start talking about it in September and brainstorm ideas and want to give us time to mull them over so that later in the fall we can make a finalize what we want to go for so that we then have sufficient time to gather all the information needed for the grant application. And I'm guessing probably the grant would come from your office, Hayley, but certainly we could do support letter and stuff like that. Yeah, I'll give you some information and whatnot. And first hand I see is Mark's. I'm so sorry. I was just wondering, could you send this link to us so we could read about it, maybe? Yeah. Just so we could be a little familiar of what we're trying to accomplish. Yeah. Thank you. You know, one thing I would just say to that, Mark, is I just happened to get this because I'm a member. If any of you are seeing opportunities for other grants that we potentially could go for, please share them because I think there's lots we need and should be doing. Sarah? Hayley, do you know what percentage of the 5,500 seniors might be veterans? Because that was one of the organ, I was thinking there might be veterans money that we could tap if that was, because there's often grants for those. That was just a random thought I had. I don't often have my head no. I know that Amherst has a lower proportion of veterans than other communities, but I could certainly ask the Veterans Affairs Office that's next door to us. They have a figure. Yeah, it's a great idea. Okay. I should say I feel obligated to say in my own best interest that grants are something that we do want to be judicious about because they do require, especially depending on how much if it's a lot of money, a lot of time to write, a lot of time to report, a lot of time to monitor, you know, there's no free lunch. We all know this. So I think sometimes it's really tempting to go after every possibility. And I think this one's a great one. So this is not in reference to the AARP grant, but we do want to be, we want to think about, you know, what can we realistically try to write and monitor and report on and implement just as a, as a heads up for me, because ultimately I have to write them. Well, and I think it sounds like there's a few of us on here that would be happy to help. Perfect. So I'd be happy to help with things like that. I also think we should be strategic and think about what, as we think about writing the grant, what might the reporting be, and how could we make that as simple and as streamlined as possible? I mean, are there certain things that could just be recorded as they happen so that it's just a matter of pulling data and dumping it into a pretty standardized template? So I think there are ways to streamline some of that to make it as easy as possible for you. And I think you think about, we could think about those things even as we're writing the grant so that we know how, you know, how to make it. This isn't to, you don't need the money to make your life that much more difficult. So I think it's everything needs to fit together. Thank you. That was perfect. I appreciate that. Excellent point. Yeah. And my, my suggestion, keep your eyes open is more just not that we will go for everything, but if we learn of things that maybe we go for next year or, you know. Oh, definitely. I can tell you, like, MCOA usually has several grant opportunities every year. We got their service incentive award this year. Typically that focuses on, like, outreach either in communication and a lot of times they'll fund caregiver support grants. So there are a lot of opportunities out there and if people can help, then I don't, you know, then we can go for as much as we really want to, but. Okay, awesome. I'm going to ask you to drop this link and bring us back to the calendar because I'm paying attention. Walk here. And I did just email it out so people should get that soon. Okay. Wonderful. So just we'll try to close out the fall here. So we'll get our ideas, brainstorm our ideas hopefully in September, October, we've got the volunteer fair again, we'll be looking to participate in that as well as the open house again visibility for COA. November, we can identify our product or that's my suggestion and then December, we'll do some sort of holiday programming. Anybody have any thoughts or questions? Does that look reasonable to folks in terms of timeline? Yep. Looks fine. Okay. It looks good. And I think it's also a good approach. Okay. I was wondering if I don't know, do you know when the AARP grants were due? I think last year. Well, and while she's looking, the reason I was asking is, is do we need to have it like on two months in a row? So maybe one month is brainstorming. And then that gives us a chance to everybody think about some of the different options so that then kind of finalize at the next meeting. Okay. Because I think if people show up with very different ideas, all very worthy, and it needs to be focused, there maybe needs to be a discussion and some time to think about it. Mm-hmm. It says March. Yeah. The applications opened mid-January and then they were due about two months later. So that we might want to adjust our calendar. So if we started talking in September, that would give us time to do some of that. And then also investigating what it would take to do them. I just didn't want it. I don't know that it's going to be a one and done kind of thing. No, excellent point. And I do think some of our ideas we need to see that they kind of mesh or fit in with the bigger senior center plan. So it may be a great idea, but it may not be this year's grant proposal. So yeah, good point. And this is very much a draft. So please, you know, we'll be tweaking. My plan with this is that we're going to look at this at every meeting and we can ship things as need be. But I also feel like it will keep us on track. Could you drop us down to see the seasonal activity, Haley? Mm-hmm. So I just, I've listed these as seasonal because obviously we can plug them in wherever the grant that we've been talking about member recruitment, assuming I think every year we've got some openings and talk about different recruitment strategies, program review. What I mean by this is taking a look at all the program offerings at the senior center and kind of doing some analysis about, you know, we're doing really well in the, you know, physical fitness end of things, but we don't have much in, you know, another area. So just kind of doing our due diligence in doing that in conjunction with Haley because I know that you've got to do some analysis there, but trying to make sure that we're offering what we need to be offering and that we're meeting various populations needs, I think, with that. And then the other, the agent dimension action plan. Again, I think that's going to be an ongoing that we need to keep on the calendar multiple times throughout the year. A couple of other things that I think would be really valuable for us and we can discuss this at a future meeting is I think it would be really wonderful for us to meet with other Council on Aging groups, whether it's Hadley, Northampton, Belcher Town, South Hadley, wherever. I think we, you know, we can learn from one another and I also think it would be valuable for us to visit other senior centers with all due respect. Many of them have beautiful facilities and I think that's something that we can dream about what we might want at some point in the future for Amherst, but I'd like to start gathering information early. So those are some other things that I think would be good for us to do on kind of an ongoing basis. Maybe once a quarter we go take a field trip to some senior center and meet with their Council on Aging. So just some ideas. I don't know if anybody, anybody, do you want to ponder that? We can discuss that next time because I am conscious of our time here. Jean? Yeah, I can't see anybody, so sorry, Hailey. I need you to tell me if somebody's Christina has her hand up. Yeah. Yeah, I need to adjourn. I need to leave. So I am gonna sign off and I'll read the minutes if I missed anything else. And thank you very much, Jean, for all your hard work and everyone else. Terri, I look forward to meeting you in the next one. Thank you. Take care. Thank you, Christina. Thanks, Christina. Anyone else have their hand up, Hailey? No. Yes, okay. All right. Can you shoot us up to the, well, very top. Well, we still have to approve our minutes. Yeah, so last time we're a little over.  I reviewed the minutes and I moved to approve. Sorry, I have an addition. Yes, Jeannie, what you got? I want to add the introduction of the calendar. I think that's important to have in the minutes. What do you want that? It would be under a new business, introduction of the annual calendar. What do you want it to say? You keep cutting out. Oh, sorry. It was introduction of an annual calendar. Okay. That's it. That's it. Okay. And Jean, can you email me, Sarah, Don, and Mark's email? Absolutely. When you get a moment? No rush. I'll update the minutes and then I'll email it to everybody. Wonderful. Thank you. All right. Our next meeting is Thursday, August 10th. And shortly thereafter, we will have our community safety day and then the following week, the council on aging, ice cream social. I do, again, encourage you beforehand. If you're able to attend Monday's meeting, that would be great. And if you have any questions, be in touch. I've got, in addition to emailing Terry, I'm going to email Mark, Don, and Sarah or Al and I, maybe the Agent Dementia report in the ARP link. So one way or another, we'll get that all out to you so that you have that. What time is Monday's meeting? 6.30. I will, I have a standing meeting at 7 o'clock from 7 till 9 is the meeting on Monday. You can submit your comment ahead of time. Okay. And the comment is in reference to the remaining ARPA funds. So the ARPA fund allocation for the senior center. Anybody have any final questions? I just want to apologize again for my ugly start and for going over. So I will, I will try to do better next time. It was really nice to have everyone. Yeah, no worries. A tech tutorial. So, yes. And once again, welcome. Delighted to have our new members and happy to have a full, full council. So thank you all. Thanks very much. Have a great day. Bye. Thank you. Welcome to the new people. Welcome. Right. Thank you very much.


And I think the one variable in this that scares people, there's never been a guy who's six, seven, two hundred and eighty-two pounds that plays late into his career. There haven't been many players that actually play at that size in baseball anyway. And when you look at the players that have, they've lasted to maybe thirty-five or thirty-six. This is a contract. He's going to be thirty-one when the season begins, when the first year begins.  That's what would happen with the Poolholz contract and the Rodriguez contract. Are you willing to sign up for those dead years at the end? The Cano contract. Ten-year contracts usually don't end up great. Do you think that the idea of a captaincy, there's no price tag on that, but that could be a sweetener? I don't know if that's going to let him leave thirty million dollars on the table for another team. I just think that if they do sign him to a long-term deal, he's the obvious choice to be the captain. He's homegrown. He certainly has assumed that role in that clubhouse. The players respect him to an unbelievable degree. I think that's a natural, but I don't think it's enough of a hook to just make up for another year or many tens of millions of dollars. And I think we think that the Yankees have to be really close on that number. There's no homegrown discount, that type of thing, or hometown discount. But having said that, we've seen this happen to other players.  There is a marketing opportunity with the Yankees being in pinstripes. And Aaron Judge already has some of those relationships in place. Absolutely, absolutely. Now he could say, well, the six or seven years that I spent in pinstripes and the 62 home runs, I'm going to take that star with me wherever I go. Remember, LeBron James became iconic and Cleveland and Peyton Matting became iconic in Indianapolis. It's a little bit of a different world. It's kind of a small village because of the internet. Everybody gets every single game. So I think there's certainly a positive to being in New York. Ask Derek Jeter, ask Joe Namath, ask Mickey Mantle. If you make it in New York, as Frank said, you can make it anywhere. Well, he's already made it in New York. But does he want his star to live in New York? Does he want number 99 on that back wall on left center field? Does he want to have Aaron Judge Day? You know, if you've injected Robinson Cano with Truth Serum, is he happy that he went to Seattle for the extra years? The Yankees actually gave him more per year in a seven year deal and he took a million dollars less per year to have 10 years in Seattle. Well, he's still collecting money, but his star has sunk.