Hi, everybody. Thanks to be here. And let's start with the presentation. So first, very quickly, which is the agenda for the next 30 minutes. We will talk about software automation using different tools, especially working with Python scripting. So we will see how to mix these tools with Python and how to realize some interesting procedure to speed up our daily job. This is not a strictly technical talk. It's not focused only on Python. But it's about using Python in a different way as a Swiss knife for doing whatever you want, basically. Simplifying our life and enhance our daily routine. The presentation is divided into parts. The first is a pure slideware. But I want to give you some concept about software automation. And the second part are a quick demos of some example I found pretty interesting about automation. So let's start. Let me introduce myself. My name is Giorgio Canieri. I'm an Italian developer, technical writer, US architect, blah, blah, blah. Of course, I'm a Python lover. So I decided to give this talk. And because I'm also a lazy guy, I decided to show you exactly how to use Python for automating repetitive and not so interesting task at all. Why automation? First thing first. Automating repetitive task has three main benefits. The first, of course, is that automating task, you can save time. You demand to a Python script or to a third-party tool, to do the dv jobs. And frankly speaking, a good script is always faster than you at executing tasks. Second, if you write a script to automate a procedure or a recurring job, once you test it, you can be confident that the result is the correct result. While you repeat tasks, you can occur in errors. Doing this by using automation is more safe. Of course, the keyword here is testing because you have always to test many times till you are confident with the result of an automation script. And third, automating helps you also to remain focused on what you're doing. If you automate, for example, a procedure to retrieve information from internet, you don't have to leave your IDE or your main application and retrieve the information, but just you can type a few strings and have the data back without leaving your main stream or your main process. The second question is when to automate? There are three factors that you need to consider when automating tasks or when you plan to automate a task. The first is execution time. So when a task takes time to execute, it's always a good candidate for automation.  The second factor is a frequency because also tasks that doesn't need so much time can be automated if they are run frequently during the day. So consider the short amount of time repeated by the number of times you run a task and you have always a good save of time. And third is, as I told you before, accuracy. If you have very delicate tasks and you need to rely on them, even if they are not time consuming or very frequent, you can consider automating them. So what can you automate? Fundamentally, whatever you want. I have some ideas. I'm giving to you some ideas, string manipulation. We will see it later, information retrieving. You can automate how to retrieve, manipulate, and reformat data, data manipulation, image management. We will see how it's possible to easily manage images for rotation or resizing or whatever you want and also document management because if you are used to produce often the same documents with only small changes, you can automate the mixing of data inside the document and produce new document. The tools. Python alone is not enough. You need a convenient way to run automation script and you need a convenient way to interact with them and get the result back. Shell is not a good candidate because to run a script in a shell, you need to leave your application or IDE, choose the right directory, run the script, remembering the name and the parameters of the script, grab outputs, and so on. So I think that Shell is a terrible candidate. At this point, you may think to write your own UI to interact with your script, but once again, this solution is weak because it takes time and you have to face different problems, like for example, software activation, interaction with 30-party apps, clipboard integration, reading and writing to the clipboard, Windows management, and so on. So considering both the approach very, very weak, I will propose you the use of 30-part tools and I will show you a more convenient way to interact with automation script, tools, and so on. What are these tools I'm talking about? I divided these tools in three categories. The first category is command line tools. I mean tools that are useful to launch command macro and so on without leaving the application you are using in foreground. These tools are, for example, Alfred for OS X, but there are many different tools for each platform. They create a virtual command line, positioned in the center of the screen, and which automatically gains focus. So you have only to press a combination of keys, activate these interface and do whatever you want. The second cluster are text expansion tools, tools that doesn't have a real interface, but that can trap your keyboard typing and do something when a specific combination of task, sorry, of keys are pressed. So I will show you later how it's possible, for example, to automate link creation, retrieving information from browser, URL shortening, and so on. And the third cluster in the end are tools that can fire action on our script at a particular moment when the system change. Generally, when you put a file in a folder, you can trigger an action, and this action can do different things on the files that are put inside this folder. What software do we need? I'm a Mac user, so I will show you tools for OS X, the first column, the one in green. But I wrote this table where you can see that there are alternatives for Linux and Windows, and the approach is quite the same. So you have command line utilities for Linux and Windows, text expansion utilities for Linux and Windows, and file system triggers for Linux and for Windows, I don't know because I wasn't able to find something similar to Hazel or Maid. The approach is the same. Once you think how to automate, and once you understand which are the parameters and the best practice you need, you can develop the same script on Westend or on Linux and on Windows. About command line, I will show you two tools that are Alfred and Keyboard Maestro. They act quite in the same way. I prefer Alfred for input management while I prefer Keyboard Maestro for output management. I will show you some examples so you can decide which is the best for you. So the first tool is Alfred. Here I have some screenshot. As I told you before, Alfred is very... Do we have the pointer? Yes. Okay. It's very simple. When you type a combination of keys, it opens a command line in the middle of the screen. We'll see it in the demo in the next minutes. And you can type a command and something happens. Which is the magic that happens. This is a workflow written in Alfred, for example, where you can define some input. In this case, the word home. You can define a process or actions that need to run. In this case, our Python script and then you define an output, which is generated translation. Keyboard Maestro works in a similar way. It has a workflow. It's a little bit less graphic. It has a top-down logic where you put blocks inside the workflow, but it's quite the same. You define a trigger for the macro, for the workflow, for the automation process.  And the actions are run exactly in this sequence with a top-down sequence. Third tool, TextExpander. It's different from the previous two because you have to decide which is the abbreviation. And in every application, you type this abbreviation. For example, in a browser, text box, or in a text editor, or in your favorite IDE. It fires this script and replace the string typed with the result of the script. That's why it's called TextExpander. Last but not least, we have a Hazel that works as a workflow manager triggered by FileSystem. In this example, I define a folder that I have on my Mac called CDN and then define an action called UploadImage. So every time I move a file inside this folder, this action is fired. And how the action works, it checks if the file that is copied inside the folder is the right type and then execute this script. In this example, it automatically takes the file, I pass it to the folder, check if it is an image file, and then uploads it to my content delivery network. Some ideas, now I stop with the slides and we can move to the demo part. And I divided the demo I will show you in three categories representing the three main blocks of software automation tools. And we will see command line tools, text expansion, and automated procedure using FileSystem triggers. So, let me switch from the two modes. Okay, so first example is NetInfo. Wherever I type command and spacebar, Alfred opens, and as I told you before, it's a command line that is conveniently placed in the middle of my screen where I can type, for example, NetInfo and it automatically produce this output with all the information about my network. How does this work in a very, very simple way? If I open the workflow manager in Alfred, you can see the NetInfo action, which is only a one block action that fires this script. The resolution is not the best point of this projector. But as you can see, it runs some system commands to gain information, SCU tools, for example, from network or VPN and so on, and then it passes to a convenient object which renders the output. So, every time I write a NetInfo, it fires these scripts, gets the information, and produces this output. Very, very easy. The only thing you have to take care of is the format of the output because with Alfred, you need to use these syntax. So, when an input is passed to the script via a query, it returns an output that needs to be a valid XML of this type, sorry. This is the XML that the Python script needs to generate. You have one or more items that are the rows of the output where you can specify a title, a subtitle, an icon, and you can specify also the value that is passed to the next step of the workflow when a row is clicked. And then you can also specify if auto-completing or not. So, you don't need to type all the commands but just the first parts. Second example, just to show you other capabilities. When I type TZ, automatically, it creates a list of timestamps in different time zones. I'm used to work with people coming from different areas of the world. So, without leaving my workflow opening, for example, a browser to check the time and so on, I just can type TZ and it does what I need. Third example is translate. Assume that you are writing an email or writing a document or something like that and you need to translate a word. You can type TR and then the word. For example, casa, which is Italian, means house, which is the same in English and Deutsch, mezon and so on. You can also translate sentences, comestas, how are you, and so on. Unfortunately, I don't speak neither Deutsch nor French. And once you select one row, it's copied to the clipboard and you can paste wherever you want. So you don't have to leave to go on Google Translate, type the sentence and so on. How is it done? Translate. I don't want to waste your time, but this is a simple script that checks the translation with Google Translate. I can also create simple notes, for example. If I just want to remember to call my friend Mario, for example, I can type call Mario and automatically, sorry, new note called Mario, which is the typical Italian name, and it automatically adds the action to a note in the script book. Very, very simple. We can go on currency converting. It's easy to know how much is 1,000 euros. It fires a script, which goes on Yahoo, in this case, I think. It uses the Yahoo app and does some calculation and outputs it to the screen. Now, let's see something more interesting for you developers. Pretty fine. Consider I have this JSON, for example. This is the JSON. This is a minified version of the JSON. I need it to pretty print it. How can I do that? I can simply copy it to the clipboard, then type, pretty fine, then choose JSON, and when I paste, I have the pretty fine version of this JSON. I can do the same with SQL, for example, SQL. I work with database. I have query writing in the worst way possible in the world. Pretty fine, SQL, and then paste. I have a script that has a procedure inside that takes the past SQL and provides the pretty fine output. Last example. Okay. Very, very easy. And you don't have to rely on a specific tool or IDE or something like that. You can pretty fine whatever you want in every tool. Text managing. Consider you have this list, for example. Okay. This is a list of member country of the UI union. If you need to do some operation on each line of this list, you can conveniently copy the list, then activate Alfred. You can use the txt command, and then you see in the subtitle, you can use text or line to manage the list. If you use text, it considers all the list. If you use line, it considers every line, each line, sorry, of the list. So, for example, if I type, plus line, plus... Okay. Each line, it depends a single quote at the beginning and a single quote plus a command at the end. So, I converted this list to a more SQL friendly format of list. But I can do whatever I want using the Python syntax. For example, if I want to remove the single quote and the comma, I can do line one, two, minus two. And it's the same. I'm using the advanced string manipulation future of Python to automate this simple task. And the script, when it's fired, takes the list, splits it using carriage return, and executes the command I pass on every single line. Once more, txt line, for example, replace space with underscore simple. Next example, creating document. As I told you before, I have the necessity to create a different version of documents, just changing symbol part of documents. So, what I did is to create a template and then fill this template with information. In this case, I can type docs. It asks me which is the project ID, one, two, three, four. Tab, it asks me the author, Gianluca. Project name, go to the moon. Project area, dreams, generate fs. And in the alt alias, I have my document generated. Okay, you see project ID, project name, author, and so on. Okay, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, yes, but writing this automation script takes time. I know, because to write, for example, this script, it took me about three hours. But if you consider that I run this script many, many times during the year, I can save a bigger amount of time than the three-hour needed to write down the script. Then I can also act on files, for example, not only on strings. If I go to, sorry, desktop, EuroPython, I have two images, the cathedral of my town. And if I type option and space bar, I created these actions. Copy file names to Clidboard. Copy file names to Clidboard with that path. Rotate clockwise, rotate counterclockwise. Okay, I type rotate, and it automatically rotates the image. How it works, when I type option and command bar, automatically pass to a Python script the name of the file, and then I can use PIL library or whatever you want. I think I'm using your image magic to rotate the image and to do the proper command. Other example, Keyboard Master, as I told you before, is my preferred tool for output. So if I type command and M, automatically it creates a personal forecast with the results for the next hours and next days. Nothing tremendously complicated, of course, but I want to show you how it's possible to output also a more detailed bunch of informations that are not only the single lines you have seen with Alfred before. You can also work on CSV file, for example. This is a script I created for conveniently display CSV files, and you can do whatever you want. Last example, Text Expansion. I have defined some macros that interact with my browser. This is the first Italian newspaper, and if I'm typing, for example, in my text editor, double commas C title, it expands with the Chrome title. If I type C URL, it expands with the Chrome URL or C link H for... Sorry. C link H for an HTML link or C link M for a markdown link. So I don't have to copy and paste the single titles and URLs or C short for a handy short link. If you see Text Expander, it works pretty, pretty simple. Get Chrome URL. When C URL is typed, this script is fired, and it can interact with Google Chrome using Apple Script in this case because it calls an external script. Last category are File System Triggered Actions. Okay, I created this folder called Resize, and each time I copy, for example, an image inside this folder, the images are automatically resized because I have a trigger that automatically takes the images pasted to Hazel and fires a Python script that does the magic. Okay. These were just ideas of what you can automate. I'll show you some needs that I had and that I solved using automation, but you can do fundamentally whatever you want. And the only thing you have to consider is how much time do you spend repeating a task and then how you can automate it. Just as a last sentence, remember that you can do the same thing on mobile devices because, for example, on Android, you have Tasker, on iOS, you have the workflow, Pythonista, and so on that are tools that can automate repetitive tasks and also on mobile devices. We have no time to talk about it, but you can use these tools. And, for example, Pythonista and Tasks supports also Python. Okay, thank you all. I'm finished. Yes, off the script. Yes, he's asking me if there is a repository for the scripts. Yes? Yeah, you have a repository for each tool. For example, if you go on TextExpander site or on Alfred's site, you have specific repositories. Maybe the solution is not writing using Python but other languages, but you can find whatever you want. If you want to look at this example in the presentation, there's a repository for the presentation. Okay, or on my site from the next Monday you can find all the gist of the example I showed you. Okay, thank you.


No, any, thanks. Any changes or additions to the agenda? Yes, I would suggest adding a motion to approve the budget proposal for fiscal year 2025. I'm fine. I'm fine. You're okay for submission to the town of Amherst. Okay, that's that's fine. Well, why don't we do that motion when we get to the budget committee? And well, I understand that no motion came from the budget committee. That would be an appropriate time. I think to do it. Thank you, Bob. Okay, we have minutes from February. You're now February 12th. Tammy, you are unmuted on one device and muted on another. Okay, can you hear me now? You we see you in two different boxes. So one one page face. The other does not talk to you. Goodbye. Okay, so we have minutes to approve from February for every 12. There's a motion to approve the minutes. So moved. Is there a second second? So before we approve the minutes, I noticed that far as just joined as far as you just want to that's not a problem. I'm here. Sorry. It's not a problem. Nice. Nice to see. Okay. There's a motion that has been seconded to approve the minutes of February 12. There are any corrections to those minutes. Okay, right. Voting to approve the minutes, Bob. Yes, Tammy. Yes, Lee. Yes, Jean. Yes, Barbara. Yes. And Austin votes. Yes. Uh, we have. Uh, we have six attendees. Uh, now have an opportunity for public comment. If any member of the public, which is to make a comment, if you would. Signify by raising your virtual hand. Okay, I see no. No hands raise. Okay, next item is the president's report and we're going to have a motion made. Let me just tell you that. We entered into following your instruction. We entered into negotiation. With the Amherst historical society. To secure easements. To facilitate the building project. We had productive meetings and conversations. With the historical society. Those meetings and conversations have produced. The draft of the proposed easement. You receive that along with a little map showing you where the easement would be in blue and in yellow. There are 2 easements. There's a temporary easement, which has to do with the. Need for during the construction project, there's a permanent easement having to do with the retaining wall. You also have seen a copy of a draft memorandum of agreement between the town and the historical. Society, that's for your information that's does not involve us. Directly, though the execution of the easement is contingent. On that memorandum of agreement between the town and the historical society. You know, being signed. So that's where we are. What I'd like to do now is to have someone move. The that the board approve this. Um, easement that that is seconded, I'm then going to ask a parent to say a few words about the easement. So, is there a motion to approve the. The easement so moved second. Okay, Bob, do you want to say a few words about the. About the easement, certainly, and I just to expand upon what you indicated, Austin, the reason that there are 2 separate documents is the library is a landowner is the party to execute into the easement. The entity that is is executing the project will be the town. And that's the reason for the member of understanding between the town and. The historical society. So that's why they're 2 separate related documents, but standalone documents because different parties have different responsibilities under those agreements. Um, as as Austin indicated, these have been reviewed. They were produced by the town attorney. They've been reviewed by the historical society. They had a couple of minor comments on them. Um, but really no significant changes. And I think other than filling in some of the information regarding the exact meets and bounds, the legal description of the property and starting dates and ending dates. These are ready to be executed. I wouldn't anticipate that the starting dates and ending dates get filled in until we receive bids, which are currently scheduled for April 16 to that point. We'll have a bit more certainty regarding the timing and that information could be filled in. And then the documents should be ready for execution at that point. And Bob, just to be clear, those the the blanks in the document are what I would describe as ministerial or or logistical, right? They're not substantive. That's correct. It's the physical description of the property, which is agreed upon. It's been reviewed with the historical society now in graphic form. That is the figure that you received that they have. Okay, that gets transferred into legal language. And then, as I indicated, there are dates that need to be filled in and I would expect to be filled in over the next month. Great. Thanks. Okay. The floor is now open for discussion about the easement. Any any questions or thoughts or observations? Bob, Bob him paragraph six requires us to provide liability insurance to the historical society. In the amounts of a million and three million dollars. What is the cost of that? Is that already covered by the $22,000 in our upcoming budget, which may or may not include that. And I'm just concerned about what the cost of that will be and whether we have covered that. Bob, do you want to say something about the insurance? Is that part of what will be done when we signed contracts with a general contractor? Yes, you're correct, Austin. That's the construction contract requires the contract to provide umbrella liability insurance. So that's provided, which will list the, excuse me, will list both the library and the historical society as additional insured under those liability insurance policies. So that'll be provided for through the contract documents that are part of the town's responsibility. And that's actually referenced in the memo of understanding in the town agreement. The easement agreement, which requires us to provide it to the historical society is in fact being covered by the memorandum of agreement. That is my understanding that the provision, it's actually in the memorandum of understanding, I believe it's paragraph 2D that references the town will require the contractor to provide that liability insurance. So it's a very similar requirement and that's the vehicle by which that insurance will be provided for. So Bob, just to be clear, that paragraph refers to $5 million in insurance. The easement number six, Bob was referencing, also adds up to $5 million in insurance, though it names three different figures, a million, three million and one million. What you're telling us is that the insurance that's referenced in the easement is what is provided for in the memorandum of understanding. We will have no independent obligation to take out any other insurance. Is that correct? That's my understanding, but I can confirm that. I will note that the actual contract requirements will exceed that $5 million that are called out. So Bob, it was my understanding though Bob will confirm it that we don't have any independent obligation to take out insurance. It'll be done through the town and part of the what the general contractor will provide. It would be nice to confirm this before we submit our budget proposal. And if it is not correct, then what are the adjustments that we will have to be made? Those are just questions that I have about that. Yeah, I think they're right. They're very good questions. I hope we can vote to approve the easement contingent upon the answer to that question. I don't want to postpone this vote on this easement. I understand. There are some minor language questions that I have about the easement as well. There are references to $15,001 as the amount to be provided as consideration on the last, now therefore it simply says $15,000 without the end one. So I don't know what the one is about and it is referenced obviously in the memorandum of agreement as well. Yeah, Bob, do you know why the $1 there? I believe the proposal that had been put forward had been a $15,000 payment and then a $1 payment for the permanent easement. So it's really just recognizing that there are actually two easements and two monetary components that when they add together come up. There needs to be a figure. There needs to be some sum written into the permanent easement and that was put forward as $1. So then the writing of the amount in words as the now therefore on page one needs to add the word end one. Correct. I agree. And on page two under temporary easement. Hold on a second. I just want to take these one at a time if it's okay. Sure. What we're going to do is we're going to, I hope, vote to approve with these changes, right? So that's one of them. Bob, go ahead. Okay. Paragraph two on page two temporary easement. The second from the last line. I think that's to this section. It says. Who lines from the bottom of number two. It says. Evidence in termination of rights granted pursuant to. Which section should be this section. I believe so, but you should read it. Okay. In paragraph three. The fourth line from the bottom. Again, this is just. Knit picking, but after the parenthesis, collectively with grantee, the grantee parties. Remove all its equipment and I would think it's remove all of its equipment. I think we can leave it the way it is, right? Remove its equipment. I think it. Grammatically does the same work. More or less. And finally, in the. Notary statement where the Amherst historical society. Who proved to me through satisfactory evidence of identification of satisfactory evidence of identification. The repetition of that phrase does not make any sense. Yeah. Bob again, I just looked. So we're down at the end. In the notary statement. Correct. This is for the Amherst historical society. Yeah, I see it. What is the repetition? Satisfactory evidence of identification of satisfactory. Evidence of identification. Satisfactory evidence of identification of satisfactory. Evidence of identification. Yeah, I repeated twice. Satisfactory evidence of it. Yeah, okay. The same is true for the second notary for us. Yeah. So that just needs to the second of satisfactory evidence. Of identification just needs to be deleted from both of those. And finally. For the Jones library. I believe it asks for two signatures. At least in general it does. But where it has a notary statement. There's only room for one signature for Jones. I'm just saying. On this day for me, the undecided notary here at Austin. President. And then it should be a second line for Robert damn treasurer. There is a comma there. But I believe that's for your title. I don't know. Is it Bob? I don't know. I think that's a separate page for each notary attestation. So is it, I thought the combo was for two names, but is it for the titles rather than the name? I do believe it's titles. And as I said, I think typically there are two separate statements that get produced and they get notarized twice. I'm individually. Okay. Okay. And Bob, parent, you've noted the things that Bob is referenced. Yes, I have. And I will get a confirmation regarding the construction insurance liability insurance carrying forward to meeting the requirements of the easement agreement. Great. Okay. As I hear double. Tammy, we can hear you. So if you want to mute your other one as well. Okay. You're on through two different devices. So. I can't just know that you're just know that anything you say is coming through. So just be okay. You've now muted the other device. Good. Okay. Other thoughts or questions about the easement. And remember, as Bob said, we're talking about to the temporary easement and the permanent easement, both of which are referenced in the. In the document. So we have a motion will approve the vote to approve this easement with the changes that we've noted. And contingent upon information. Concerning the insurance coverage. Namely, we're approving it if the representation. That the insurance coverage referenced in the memorandum of agreement with the town. In fact, is the insurance coverage referenced in the easement. If that turns out not to be true. We may have to come back. And revisit this. Revisit this discussion. Okay, voting to approve the easement with the Amherst historical society Bob. Yes. Lee. Yes. Jean. Yes. Farah. Yes. Tammy. Yes. And Austin votes yes. And I just want to say. How grateful we are to have such good neighbors. How grateful we are to have a kind of. Working relationship with the historical society that we. That we have. Working with them has been. A pleasure as it always is. And I think we've come to an understanding that serves the interests. Not only of the building project, but also. Of the historical society. Okay. Next item is the building committee. The building committee again has not. Has not met. I imagine that we will meet again. After the. The bids are in and after we have a general. General contractor. Sharon, do you want to say anything about the interim spaces? All I can say is that. We're. What can I say? What can I say, Bob parent? We're working on it and we're so close and people will be happy. Does that, is that. How's that. Bob parent, do you want to add to that? I don't think he gets any better than that. So I'll leave it at that. So Sharon, do you have a sense of when there may be more to say about the interim spaces? You may not. Do you have a sense of when. No, not really. A couple of weeks, but I said that a couple of weeks ago. So. It's hard to say. Okay. Any questions about the building committee in the building projects. Bob, hold on a second. I've got far first. Sharon, just a quick question. So. I'm sure like everything is up in like for the staff. So how's everyone dealing with this? Not knowing exactly how much to pack and exactly when you're going to move. So we don't out of boxes or. No, so, so we don't know timing yet, but we know what we have to do. So staff are working on. The plans for when we do close and get to start packing and, and we'll be moving and the PR is a big piece, you know, getting information out to the public. That's really important. So staff are working on that. So it's really for them, it's more about the timing. And of course that's definitely. A little anxiety producing. Yeah. I'm a reading program is going to be here before we know it. And staff normally are, are very involved in that planning. Right about now. And that's hard to do because there's so much planning that has to be done regarding the move. Yeah. Okay. Well, we appreciate all that you're doing and they're doing. The staff really are. They're pretty fabulous, you know, but I said kind of jokingly, four years ago when COVID happened, they turned on a dime and they completely reworked, re-envisioned, re-imagined, and started providing library services in a different way. And, and they're kind of having to do that again. But this time, you know, no one's afraid to be near each other. So they, they got this, they got this. Thank you for asking Farah. Thank you. I'm a little disappointed that Sharon didn't reference an appearance by the president of the board of trustees to express our appreciation to the, to the staff and to lift their morale. Appreciation was conveyed. I'm not sure how morale, how well morale was lifted, but I did, I did go to the library to talk to them a little bit about how much we appreciated what they were going to be doing in this period of transition. And I think Sharon has done a great job in terms of enlisting, enlisting their cooperation and they're taking on, if you will, this extra, this extra work. Bob, Bob, Bob Pam. Two questions. The first is since, since the library is essentially still fully functioning in its current location. And at some point, the, the construction plan basically says once a contract is signed, it moves immediately into construction. And the building, just how long is it going to take to actually pack up, move and unpack in order to allow for the construction to begin. So that's the first question. Bob parent can talk more about the timing that exists between each milestone, but staff are looking at right now, they're, they're thinking about. Once we know, you know, when we're moving that we're moving where we're moving. We could close and then we would need about four weeks. And then we would move over to the new space. And it would take us about another four weeks before we could open. Those are all issues. Really, no date that I throw out there right now can, can mean much of anything because there are so many unknowns and so many moving parts and things that I thought I knew last week have changed already. And so everybody's just going to have to bear with the whole process. So when bits open on the 16th. So does Bob parent recognize that there is a four week hiatus between approving a contract and actually starting to do any work within this building. That's the question. Absolutely. And as Sharon indicated, I can talk just a little bit about what the contracting contract contract award contract execution timeline looks like. By statute, communities have up to 30 days, excluding weekends and holidays between the time when they receive bids to award the bids. That time period is typically used to check references resolve any issues that might come up in a, you know, in a bid or a bid protest or anything else that might come up. Let's hope we don't get there, but you know, things do happen. So there's a 30 day clock minus holidays and weekends that's running once the bids are received. The next step after the contract is awarded is the actual contract execution and that typically takes a couple of weeks because what happens in that time period is the contractor has to reach out to the bonding company to get their bonds in place. They have to reach out to their insurance company to get their insurance certificates in place. The town has to review those documents make certain they comply with the contract documents. That's typically a couple of week period unto itself. And then there's typically a time lag between when the contract gets executed and a notice to proceed gets issued and the notice to proceed as the actual documents says, you know, you have won the contract and you have executed the contract and now you're free and clear to proceed on the project. That will probably be about a two month period from start to finish between when the bids get received to when the actual notice to proceed date is, and that overlays pretty well with the whole, you know, library moving process. So it's something we're constantly looking at Sharon and I are talking about almost every day of how do those two work together but I do think they'll work together okay. So Bob, does that answer your question? Yeah, so it sounds like groundbreaking would be middle to late June or early July. That's likely, you know, June is probably the earliest, then it's up to the contractor to decide what their schedule is going to be, you know, we set the completion date we don't set their start date. Okay, and that meets the requirements of the MVLC. The MVLC only requires that we sign a contract with a GC by the end of June. Okay, I had one other question or with respect to the building committee. And then that is once it was discovered that that we had to take down ceilings in order to remove dangerous materials below the roof. That changed the question which had previously been stated which is that we could not put additional insulation in the old parts of the building, because that would involve getting behind walls which did not have a space. I don't know whether any of the ceilings being taken down is going to change that ability to get insulation into the old parts of the building. Sharon, what's what is FAA's view of this. I haven't asked specifically so I don't know. We'll find out for you Bob. Thank you. Okay, any other questions about the building committee. The building committee is being re reconstituted. We have to change the membership adding a member from the board of trustees adding a public member. And again, that is, that is, that is being done. Okay, buildings and facilities for nothing to report we haven't met yet this year. Sharon, I guess we'll be meeting next month. Maybe if we have something to meet about. Sharon. Ish, yes. Yeah, it kind of it goes back to the whole conversation that we just we just had it's all wrapped up together. Thank you for. Okay, next is the development committee Lee Edwards. Okay, you have the relevant documents for the annual fund. As of March 1st, March 1st seems suddenly so long ago I can hardly remember it. The annual fund has contributions of $90,786 from 496 gifts as compared with $85,752 from 522 gifts at the same time, a year ago. So the this year's trend is continuing that we're a little bit ahead of where we were last year we have fewer gifts, but on average the gifts are higher. And we are constantly tracking people who gave last year who haven't given this year in the hopes of getting at least a match if not an increase in the number of gifts. We don't want to lose donors to the annual fund and we keep trying to explain in our mailings. The annual fund goes for programming, chiefly, and the other funds go to the capital campaign. So that the library needs contributions in both. And for the capital campaign. It was a slow month, the month of February glad it's over glad that it was short, and March has been quite a lot more active. There's there's at least $50,000 that I know of in pledges and contributions for March. And in addition to which there's almost my favorite gift to the entire capital campaign it's not a huge gift, but it's a gift from a local poker club, which has pooled. It's winnings for the past year in order to make contribution to the capital campaign. So I think that's quite lovely. And the ongoing series of library tours, chiefly given by Kent and or me, which has been very robust. And for each of the last two tours that we have given we've each had 16 people which is enormous. And so, you know, we, we know they were very enthusiastic and we will follow up with them. So the beat goes on. Right. Lee may I just ask you a question. In the chart, the page that says capital community campaign results today. The first report current and then last report is that February 1st 2024 was just cut off on the document. Oh, I think so. Yeah. So, my question is simply, I just want clarification. Let's take a look. This is just completely minor towards the bottom where we're talking about gifts of under 100 and around $100. They're listed 135 of them in February for a total of 4,632. And then 135 the number hasn't changed, but the dollar amount has changed. And that's true in, in a couple of places. There are the numbers are just hard for me to follow. There are 102 gifts listed of $100 or more in February but then only 100 at March. Yes, I see what you say. I'll have to ask the person who generated these for some explanation. I don't rather than speculate. I'll just ask and get an answer. Nothing of great significance. Notice those numbers and couldn't figure out. You know, one of the things that's constantly happening is people are people are often changing their pledges. And so they may go from a less than 100 up to a 100 or a 500, et cetera. So this is literally a snapshot as of March 1st on March 2nd. The report is going to look differently. That would have been my speculation, but I thought I would. Sorry. Again, it would be good to know the numbers just hard to follow. Yep. Okay, any questions for the development committee. Yeah. Robert. The March 1 report. Describes the amount in gift intentions as 1.8 million dollars. Well, the amount of gifts has increased to 2.2 million dollars. That is all good news, but I have thought that it would be useful to have a column which basically looks at the translation of intentions into actual cash as an additional column. For example, between February 1 and March 1, basically $252,000 was converted from, or at least I think it's converted from intentions into actual gifts. I can speculate and say that is probably the contribution that was made by Amherst College. But, you know, it is useful to be able to track the amount of intentions which are being converted into actual cash. So I would like to have this report reflect, you know, some some translation column, which basically says conversions to cash or something of that kind. But it is it is nice to know that the intentions actually get carried out. But it's also helpful to know what it is that is happening in these, in these reports. There is a second. I'll hold on the rest. So one of the things that I would say is gifts doesn't necessarily mean that they were pledges to begin with these could be new gifts. I totally appreciate what people are asking for. If you want exact, again, it comes down to a snapshot. This was what it was as of March 1 on March 2nd it changed. We can't give out, you know, names and addresses and this is how much each person has donated and whether or not there was a pledge. There's also a happy medium between getting the work done and reporting on it, and it's not. It seems like it's so simple to be able to say, Oh, Sharon, Sharon used to be a pledge, and now she's a gift and so there's add one. But I just want people to understand it's a bigger beast than that and and. But we have, we have asked the folks who use the the software to do the reporting, you know, it has to get it gets reported out of the software and then it gets transferred into this PDF and it's a process so anyways. Leah, I don't know if you have other things to say. I was going to say, I mean, pretty much what Sharon said is is is true if the trustees feel that it would be helpful for us to have each month. A number that says this is the amount that was previously pledged that has now come in. I think that that could be generated without that much difficulty. Just to underline what Sharon has said, that will tell you exactly what we said it won't map on any other number in the in the table. You won't be able to extrapolate from that back to what the total gifts were. It'll just say, of whatever we're mapping. This is this much came in a pledge fulfillment. But before you say anything more on this, I just want to ask a question. So I there's a kind of question behind. I hear another question or question that's. And that is, are you encountering difficulties in converting pledges into gifts. Are you asking me. Yeah. No. No. Right. So that's, that's kind of the question that one would be worried about right at the capital campaign committee said we're actually having trouble. Moving pledges into gifts people are pledging and then not fulfilling their pledges, but you're not you're not having that problem. No. Okay. Bob. I'm happy to discover that the amount that is being pledged is increasing faster than the amount that's being withdrawn idea that that that's fine too. I'm just trying to have a better handle on this and I think maybe what I need to do is to go visit with the friends who are doing this and get a better understanding of how it works. Again, you're, you're, you're welcome to do that in so far as the friends want to provide that information, but I think what you were asking is whether the trustees want this information. That was what I was asking. Yeah. Yeah. That's the issue. The issue isn't whether any one of us wants it. That would be that's fine, but this is a decision that the board has to make to request this new bit of information. So, I think, I don't know, you'd have to make a motion and then we'd have to discuss the motion and have to prove the motion and then ask the capital campaign to committee to do it. If you don't want the board to ask for it, that's fine. The memorandum of owners of agreement. Sorry, I don't remember which it is with the friends basically says that, you know, the treasurer can and should be reviewing things and so that is what I've been doing. The treasurer can and I totally appreciate that, but we're going to look at the bylaws in a minute and the bylaws are very clear that we don't act as individuals. We act as a board. So I think maybe what you ought to do is to engage in further conversations with the capital campaign and and then if there is a desire for additional information. That desire can be brought to the board and the board can ask for it as a board. Any other question. For the development committee. All right. Thank you for the work that the development committee is doing. Thank you as always to the, to the capital campaign committee. Okay. Pammy PPP talking about the bylaws. Yep. Okay, we have two motions. The first is to approve a revision of the bylaws. And this was fairly limited getting rid of the select board and making a few similar changes. And move that we accept the revised bylaws and list of committee assignments in town. Is there a second. Second. Okay. So questions about the revisions to the bylaws, which are mostly grammatical in one place that rightly corrects the reference to the select board. So voting to approve the revision of the bylaws, Bob Pam. Yes. Lee Edwards. Yes. Jean. Yes. Burr. Yes. Tammy. Yes. And Austin votes yes. Okay. Tammy. There's a second motion and Sharon will Catherine would come be able to join us. Yes, she happens to be in the audience, although I didn't ask her to speak to this. But knowing her she's absolutely prepared. I will make a motion that we approve the deaccession list, provided by the director of special collections, and to transfer items to the American stock society. Is there a second. Second. Okay. Catherine. Welcome to the meeting. Thank you for. Thank you for coming. Thank you for joining us. Do you want to say anything about. The list thank you for the memo. And the, and the list you want to say anything explaining what is being deaccession. Of course. Can everybody here in me now. Yes. I have a question. This is the second of hope and hopefully the last request. Board items to be deaccession from the number of items that were transferred to us by the Amherst historical society. Back in April of 2022. At that point they did a very large. items to us. I came before the board in November of 2022 with my first request. It was about 75 books, I believe. And then this request is the result of my colleague's excellent efforts at going through the remainder of that collection being transferred. She actually went through it twice to double check. And so the items on this list, the 228 lines represent items that do not, we do not believe fall within the collection development policy of special collections. And so we ask the trustees that they be allowed to be deaccessioned and returned to the Amherst Historical Society as laid out in the original deed of gift back in that was signed back in April of 2022. Thank you, Catherine. Catherine, I have a question that I didn't, I guess, what does it mean to say no connection, no direct connection to Amherst? So I was struck by a proposed to deaccessioning an issue of the Springfield Republicans from 1861. And the explanation given said no direct connection to Amherst. And I wonder what that means or how that judgment is made. Basically, what we do, what specifically Jennifer did, and then we work together on several of them. We basically went through and every single item, we looked at the item, tried to find any information that the Historical Society had about the item, which oftentimes didn't really happen. And then we looked at each item specifically and said, okay, is there a direct connection to Amherst in this item? If it's a newspaper, is it about, does it have an Amherst article in it? Does it have an Amherst picture in it? Things like that. If it was simply that it's a Springfield newspaper, we don't actively collect Springfield newspapers. We have a very small collection of very early ones, but we simply don't have the room and Springfield collects them for us. So if we ever need them, we can contact Springfield. Okay. So you're assessing, you're actually looking at them, just by being saying, is there something in it that references Amherst? That's very helpful to know. Yes. We do go that deep in our determination of is it worth keeping? Yes. Is it worth us keeping or should it be returned? Yes. Okay. Questions about the deaccessioning proposal or by any of the items? Okay. Voting to approve the deaccessioning request, Bob Pam? Yes. Lee? Lee said, signal yes. Jean? Yes. Farah? Yes. Tammy? Yes. And Austin votes yes with great thanks, Catherine, for the work that you did. This is a considerable bit of labor. So thank you very much for that. I'd like to thank Catherine because during our PPP meeting, she went over this list in great detail. Oh, she was terrific. And I want to thank her for her assistance. Oh, I have to thank my colleague Jennifer. She did a lot of the legwork on this one. So yes. Great. Tammy, anything else from PPP? No, that's all. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Next is a report from the budget committee. I guess I would propose a motion to approve the budget proposal for fiscal year 2025 for submission to the town of Amherst. Is there a second? A second. Okay. Bob, do you want to say anything? Yes. Okay. The budget committee discussed the proposal prepared by the director and was split on it. So it comes to the board without a recommendation. I believe we need to discuss it. It must be submitted to the town by April 1st. Great. I can make my comments, but I think Sharon should talk first about what it is that she has prepared. Sharon? Sure. So what I've submitted is a decrease in 0.1 by 0.1% over FY24, a total budget of $2,934,762, because there are still a lot of unknowns specifically where we're going to be for next fiscal year. And utilities are the big thing that's up in the air. It has to do with the number of places that we're going to have to go in the interim as well as what we'll have to pay as far as electricity or gas or whatever that is. So what I have included here are conservative educated guesses based on some estimates that we got from some people who are leasing from the space that's there now. These are a lot of place holders. What the conversation came down to was I've included $23,000 worth of programming. And what was also proposed is boosting that number up to $40,000 in which case that difference would have to be added under revenue sources to what we would request from the friends. And so the reason I wasn't comfortable adding to the bottom line, not because I don't think the friends will raise it, I'm worried about what staff will be able to accomplish and what kind of funds I will need for utilities. And so if we end up having to spend less in utilities, yay, then whatever extra money comes in that would go towards programming. But if it didn't, I didn't want to over promise programming to people. So that's why I'm recommending what's in the packet. And so Bob, I'll throw it back over to you. Bob, before you may just ask a couple of questions about what Sharon just said. So you've reduced the utility in the budget proposal. The utilities expenses is $60,000. Is that right? Am I reading it correctly? Yeah. And that is a substantial reduction from what the budget was for 2024 of $30,000. Correct. And that decrease is being driven by your sense of what the utility costs will be in an interim space. Yes. So one of the locations that we're looking at, we won't have to pay certain utilities that we have to pay now. Meaning, I've understood it correctly that the reduction in utilities is driven by your sense of what the utility costs will be in this interim location where we're going to be when this budget year is in place. Correct. Similarly with respect to programming, there is a substantial reduction in the budget for programming. And I wanted to understand that. And again, I imagined it had to do with the interim location that you're not sure what the programming possibilities will be given the other responsibilities that the staff are going to have to take on during the time that we're in the interim location. Is that correct? That's a part of it. The other part is looks are deceiving. So for the FY 24 budget for programming, that $71,000 figure, that includes a large chunk of money for Linn's ESL class of senior citizen for seniors. That is only going to go on for half of FY 25. So it looks like the decrease is quite large, but it's not. The other thing I wanted to just make sure I understood is actually the proposal for FY 25 looks a lot like the actual in programming for FY 20, 21, and 22. Correct. So it's not in and of itself an unprecedented figure because you go back to those three years and one year it was 26 and one year it was 25 and one year it was 29. So it's within that frame. Correct. Okay. Sorry, Bob. I'm going to do this somewhat formally just because that's the way I put it. But this is a budget for a period in which we expect to be outside the Jones building with unclear access to our collection. I'm sorry, but I have to do this. I will just ask the librarian. I'm a trustee and I'm having a meeting at the board. So I'm afraid I have to do this right here, right now. I'm sorry. I'm going to continue if I could. Sure. This is a budget for a period in which we expect to be outside the Jones building with unclear access to our collection and possibly awkward access to many staff services. For some patrons, it will feel like the Jones is partially closed. By closing the schools during COVID, it could result in negative impacts on our patrons and potential patrons. To counter such an impression, I think we need to find ways to come out to meet patrons wherever they may be, meaning new and broader forms of programming. Yeah. Yeah, I'm really sorry, but this is the only place where I can enforce the quiet stuff. That's fine. Can I find you another spot? Please do. In your brain, can I help you with anything? Austin, it will take me a moment to move to a different location.  We'll try to avoid this in the future. Thanks, Bob. Taking time. So we'll just take a minute while Bob is relocating. It's good to know he's using the library. Would you like the library, as you may know? I'll be fine if I take place. Yeah, I don't think we'll find out if I move here, like the tree, like the red London. Oh yeah, let's try that. Would you like me to give you a tour of the library? Don't show that there's great demand on library space. It is true. I did not have done what I did, but it was empty when I arrived. Can you hear me? Yeah, back to you, Bob. Okay, I'm going to make this just a little louder if that helps. If you don't need it, I won't. We're good. We can hear you. Okay. This is a budget for a period in which we expect to be outside of the Jones building with unclear access to our collection and possibly awkward access to many staff services. For many patrons, it will feel like the Jones is partially closed, like closing the schools during COVID. It could result in negative impacts on our patrons and potential patrons. To counter such an impression, I think we need to find ways to come out to meet patrons wherever they may be, meaning new and broader forms of programming. From broad strokes, the total 2025 income and expense projected are about the same as this year. The tenant appropriation is set to rise by 4% rather than the more usual 3%, but half of that is swallowed by a $47,000 increase in benefits. Direct salaries and work study rise by $75,000, so other changes are needed to cut costs or raise income. Anticipating we will be out of the Jones, maintenance repairs and utilities are reduced by nearly $100,000, while operations are set to rise by $16,000.  Fiscal year 25 income from the town is about $90,000 higher than this year. The endowment's draw is just $3,000 higher than this year. These sources are supplemented by state aid grants and funds of the Friends of the Jones. Last year, we projected higher income from the Friends than they raised, which we made up for by using virtually all of the state aid's prior unspent balances. This year, state aid will be higher, but all of it is included in our budget. The line for gifts and grants is lower, in part because there is less grant money receivable, but also because the amount expected from the Friends has now been reduced to less than we received last year and can't expect this year. Included in our package is a 2025 proposal to spend $23,700 on programming. However, $15,200 of that is ESL, leaving just $8,500 for activities in three or more locations for kids, young adults, and adults. It's just less than $9,000. To be clear, this is consistent with current library policy. Also in our package is a request to the Friends for money for adult programming for the three remaining months of fiscal year 2024 for $500. Three months, $500, all adult programs. Part of the expansion we plan is to expand the kinds of services we can offer. This is the time to experiment with new formats, partners, and communications to make our neighbors, whether they're physical or virtual, excited by the project and supportive of it. A budget is a plan of action, a statement of what areas we want to emphasize and how we want to achieve results. I don't believe that, as written, this budget does that in a way that is strategic and effective. Make the library more lively, and I believe we can raise more money for both the capital campaign and the annual fund. This is when we need to build support for the capital campaign, both in its large donor component, but also by strengthening the local endorsement to be evidenced by more small donor receipts. I believe people will respond to a visible library that sponsors and carries out community events, sometimes online, but also through films, participatory physical programs like dance or games, lectures and demonstrations, and not always within the Jones spaces. Therefore, I recommend that we add at least $25,000 to the programming line to be balanced by an increase in the gifts and grants line with the understanding that if this proves insufficient, that we request the friends to make an additional contribution from the Woodbury fund if needed. I would also question whether we can effectively use work-study students at the current level if the likely demand for browse books is reduced because you can't browse our collection. Subsequent to the preparation of the proposed budget, okay, I've already dealt with the other part of this, so that is my comment on the budget. I think we need to have more than $8,500 for programming and plus the ESL programs, and this is inadequate. It is simply the wrong message to send to the town of Amherst. So, Bob, I'm going to ask you to hold off on making a motion, at least for a minute, if that's okay. Okay. So, I wonder, Sharon, if you could give us your sense of what your sense of what Bob has just said. So, my question is, when we are in our interim location, how do you imagine or what do you imagine in terms of the availability of staff time for doing the kinds of programming that might have otherwise been done if we were not in an interim location? I know that staff love programming, that's like the heart and joy and soul of what they do here. They understand that. That's one of the big things that bring people to the library, so that's absolutely what they want to do, but at this point it's really hard to be out of survival mode. We're all kind of in survival mode right now, and we're going to be in survival mode for several months. Combine that with year after year after year with Bob saying we're expecting too much from the friends. If money were no object, absolutely, I would want nothing but programming, but there is no programming space in the interim spaces, so all of the programming will be off-site, which means it's more difficult to do that because we have to staff the interim space, and I'm not all of a sudden going to be doubling my staff, so that's a piece of that survival mechanism. People also need to be able to get sick, go on vacation, that kind of a thing. I'm getting into the weeds, but it's running a library out of several locations is not an easy feat, and I need to protect the staff and their sanity and their health, and so the budget I submitted takes that into consideration along with I need to pay utilities, that's a no if, answer, but, and so if there ends up being money and time and staffing at the end of the day, I have a feeling that a year from now I will come back to you and the FY24 actuals and the FY25 actuals will be better than what I'm predicting right now. I'm just, I'm just feeling like it's important to be on the conservative side. That being said, look at my glasses, I'm happy to take risks, so if you all want to add another 25 Gs to what the friends have to raise, sure we can throw that in there. I'm just, I'm not comfortable doing that right now. So when Bob was reading his statement, I was, and just based on what Sharon just said, I was just wondering how realistic Bob's expectations are. Thinking about what Sharon said about staff being in, you know, almost in COVID mode, I realized the space is going to be smaller. I know the staff go above and beyond always like they did during COVID as well, but I don't, I like, I like the fact that Bob wants us to continue to do, wants the library to continue to do all this and send the message that this is what we want donations for. We want people to, to support this, but I just don't see it as realistic and I just feel like with a smaller space and staff like jumping around, I feel like also a lot of the programming, what I was presuming Sharon was, and some of the programming might shift to Munson or the North Amherst library. And I just feel like that's a lot to ask of people and you spoke about the schools, I believe, Bob. And I'm thinking like during the construction phase right now, I think things are going to be very different. I mean, we have certain expectations that things will go on as they should, but I feel there's going to be a lot of disruption at the Fort Riverside right now with the, with the construction going on. And I just, and just to bring that back to the Jones, I think it's especially this first year, it's a lot to expect from the staff and from the library. And I, and I think I respect that Sharon knows what she's talking about. She's been doing this forever. She's worked with the staff during COVID. And I just, I would respect what Sharon has to say about this. I mean, I like that it's, what you're saying to me is very idealistic, but I don't see that maybe next year things would be different. But right now I feel like so much is up in the air that I think that's a lot to expect from the library and the staff. Thanks. Thank you, Lee. Which is nice to speak. I'd like just to let some others get in for a minute. Absolutely. Thank you. I'll get back to you, Lee. Thank you. I appreciate what Tara had to say. I think the main reason that the budget committee came to you without having made a recommendation prior to this meeting was precisely so that the whole Board of Trustees could have this very important discussion. I did not think it was something that should just stay within a two-person committee. And then I know it's going to sound very odd to people who are professional budget readers. But I regard the budget, especially this year, as truly a projected document in a year in which there is so much uncertainty. And I know from having worked with Sharon and from having worked with many of you all on the trustees that the library needs to have a certain amount of flexibility as it moves through on certain times, which for as long as I've been in a trustee, that all the times have been uncertain. And so if Sharon wanted to come back in the middle of the year to the trustees or to the friends to say, we made a budget based on certain assumptions, these assumptions have worked out in such a way that I am now coming to you with revised assumptions that require changing the budget projection and changing the request to the friends or to the trustees for the endowment, that we would have a discussion that was sensible and tried to resolve whatever the issues were. So that's sort of the, you know, my own feeling is, along the lines that Farah said, I would tend to trust Sharon's projection with the understanding that it's a fluid situation. If and when things change, she'll get back to us and we will accommodate those changes. Thank you, Lee. Thank you. I got Bob and then Tammy Bob. Last year we made some assumptions about when we would be moving forward on the construction of this project. At the time, the budget included an estimate of $175,000 to be raised by the friends. That will be off by at least $50,000 this year, which will be made up by taking what was left of our state aid reserves. The year before we set it up at $175,000, the description was this was to be a proposal based on what we hope would happen. And so in both cases, I voted for a budget that I thought was unrealistic, but which, you know, I was willing to allow because I could not produce a real budget in a year in which we expected to be in the middle of crazy moves. Here we are expecting that by July 1, give or take a few days, we will be out of this building and we will be in a comparatively stable situation. That comparatively stable situation ought to be seen by us as an opportunity to work on things that need to be worked on. Sharon is correct that this is not a drastic change from last year because we didn't do enough programming this year and we didn't do enough programming the year before. That has been my position all the way through, but to have a real budget at this point of $8,500 for all children, adult and young adults programs is ridiculous. It is a way of saying that we really are not going to be a presence in the town of Amherst for this year and my guess is that the same arguments will be made for the second year in which we will be out of this building and waiting for a new building to go. This is not the way for us to maintain a presence that we need to do. It is not the way for us to raise money. It is not the way for the library to function. I will object to this in every way that I know how. This is a way of us making sure that we do not have a successful capital campaign at the local level. It is a way of making sure that this satisfaction with the Jones Library will continue and grow and I don't want that to happen. Okay, Tammy, you are next. I think the staff is pretty beloved by the community and, as Sharon said, enjoyed doing the programming. I think they will do everything in their power to offer as many programs as they can. I would like to trust them and trust the director's assessment of how funds might need to be appropriated with the knowledge that things can be shifted if utility costs are not as she has suggested. I would like to clarify, Sharon, is this correct that out of the programming budget a certain amount is going to ESL? Yes, let me. 15 is for ESL and then the 26 plus the five is for programming. It is $23,000 for programming all together. Not all together. Please hold. That is the eight that Bob mentioned. Okay, then 23. Yes, yes, yes, yes. 2800 for youth, 1800 YA, 1800 adult, 800 at north, 800 at months and another 500 for ESL is what's projected. Okay, thank you. I do have confidence in the staff that they will do the best they can to provide programming and I do understand that there's so many unknowns that you have to lose some amounts for contingency. Thank you. Lee Edwards. Hold on a second, Lee. Is your hand, is that a new hand or an old hand? I have one more comment, but I can wait. Okay, that's fine. Lee? This is a question to Sharon first. My sense is that a lot of programming goes on that's already kind of built into the library's budget in terms of staff time and what minimal materials needed. Is that assumption correct? Absolutely. Yes, there's money. So the fact that there's not a whole lot of extra money is in part because the staff already has programming built into what their job description is as it were. Is that right? And or free. Okay, and then my other comment is in so far as the friends and the capital campaign are involved in programming on behalf of the library. Any expenses that are incurred as part of that programming is borne by the friends and the capital campaign committee which put out a big event and has other events in mind as part of what the friends and the the fundraising committee in general sees as its obligation, especially in this interval. So it's not that there won't be programming. It just won't be the usual kind of library programming. Thank you. Okay, Gene, Bob, and then back to you, Gene. Just wanted to add on it. I think all the viewpoints expressed right now are by everyone. There's validity to all of that. Just a, is it a suggestion or a possibility that we could formally kind of reconvene after the move, after the echoes of the move have settled down and the staff are in all the interim spaces? I think there's more than one. At that point, once, whether that's June, July, or August, is there a possibility for Sharon and the staff to come back and say, well, now that we're in and we see what this looks like, this is what we might suggest for say the second half of the fiscal year. Just kind of like saying, you know, don't want to say, you know, no to Bob, but maybe let's get past that period of uncertainty that's going to be caused by the move because goodness gracious knows what's going to happen, right, during the move. There's so many moving pieces. My mind explodes when I actually have looked at some of the lists. Is there a way to to kind of formally revisit this or commit to revisit this at some period of time after the move is completed? Bob? The answer is, of course, we could meet at any time if there was a desire to do so. I would note that this year we knew months ago that we were not going to reach $175,000 and we simply went into a different part of money to replace that. The same was true in the previous year. The director has not come to the board and said, whoops, the budget is out of balance. This is what I'm going to do to fix that. And, you know, I don't believe that that's going to happen next year either. So that is the first point. And the second is that while I understand and appreciate what Tammy has said and Farah has said and Sharon has said about protecting the staff, what we're describing is an inward-looking library when I think for the next two years what we need to be doing is be an outward-looking library and focused on how we look and how we act and how we respond to the town. And if we don't do that, I don't know how well we will be able to do on raising the money that we need to raise. So thank you, Bob. Sharon, I have a couple of questions if it's okay. Can you give us a sense? Let's just imagine forward it's the fall. Let's think of, Bob, I'm going to, if you allow me to kind of assume that the programming that we did last year or two years ago was adequate, though I know you're not sure that it was. What kinds of programs would have been done last year or the year before in September and October, November that will not be done under the proposed budget for the upcoming year? Could you give us a little bit of a sense of kind of what we're talking about? So no, I can't. Because going back to the fact that we are so in flux, what's been happening for the past let's say year and a half is the staff are going to the friends kind of piecemeal. That's not what the way we've been doing it for the past 10 years. And the friends wish the staff could come to them and say, hey, this is what our entire fiscal year is going to look like. They just can't. So it's easier for staff to go month by month by month, which is why I've got a Woodbury request vote for you guys to look at this month, just like you had one last month in the month before. It's all about staff schedules and the way things are going and what's going on in town. I absolutely disagree completely that there hasn't been enough programming. It's one of the reasons that I put all of the- I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I was trying to just get a sense of if we looked at the calendar of things that was done in the library last September or the September before that or some other September, what would we see that is likely to be not able to be done this upcoming September? In other words, is there any way to make it a little more concrete about what we're talking about? Right now I only know that the summer reading program is going to be pared down quite a bit, and that's where a lot of the money normally goes to. And again, so staff aren't looking into the fall, so I just can't answer your question. I don't know. Well, you're contemplating doing less programming, is that correct? I'm contemplating putting less money towards it. Doesn't mean that there's going to be less programming. My question is, are you contemplating doing less programming? It's very hard to follow this because on the one hand you seem to be saying we're going to be doing less programming because of the demand on the staff. Is that correct? That's what I'm just trying to figure out. Yes, that's absolutely correct. But what I know about the staff is when they have the time and the motivation and they see a program, oh yes, this will fit here, then they're going to go for it and they will ask the friends for the funding. So would it affect the operation of the library if we increased the programming budget? And then you either used it or you didn't as you saw things unfold. Yeah, absolutely. So rather than wait and then mid-year and adjust this and that, I mean the question of what programming we have in the library is a question for you and the staff to decide, right? The trustees don't vote on we should have this program or that program. But if it's a matter of providing resources in the eventuality that a staff person comes forward and says, you know, I've got time, I'd like $1,000 to do this. A budget is a planning document, but it isn't a set of commands. So would you have any objection? Totally fine. Provide the funds, you use them as you're able to use them. Now the question is whether or not we can produce a balanced budget in by allocating more funds for programming. So again, just so I'll understand this, Bob made a proposal that we increase. Bob, where is this $25,000 going to come from? I propose that the expectation to come from the friends be increased by $25,000. That still makes it about a third less than we put into the budget this year. It makes it roughly equivalent to what we expect to raise this year. I don't understand the question. I don't understand the opposition. Well, I wasn't asking whether you understood the opposition. I was just asking where you were proposing that the money come from. That was my proposal. Correct. And of course, another place the money could come from is we could increase incrementally the draw from the endowment. Good. So it is not clear to me at this moment whether the allowance which is built into the building construction budget, which says this is the amount for moving and for temporary spaces includes the cost of utilities in those spaces. No, we have to pay our utilities. So it seems, I mean, my own my own disposition is I don't share exactly Bob's sense that, you know, the future of the library depends upon the programming that we do over the next year. I don't. I think that people rightly will understand the situation of the library. I think they are looking forward to the renovated and expanded library. So I don't I don't have that sense. If the fundraising people if Lee came said, no, you got to do this or otherwise we're not going to be able to raise money, then I would I would think, OK, it's necessary for the capital campaign. But I haven't heard that. But what I've heard is Sharon saying she doesn't want to she doesn't want to lead people to have a set of false expectations about the amount of programming that can be done. And that message, I think it's been very clear. But why not provide Sharon budget this? And with the understanding that it will be up to Sharon and the staff to figure out if they can use the funds and how they can use the funds. Sharon, would that work for you? Sure. Yep. Yep, far. Just a comment that I don't think there's anything inward looking about what some of us have said, Bob. I I don't believe just like Austin just said, I don't think the community is going to expect us to to provide programming on the level that we have been providing based on the space. But I also don't think it's inward looking to be considerate of what the staff's constraints are going to be. And and I really appreciate the fact that Sharon isn't trying to. I don't even know if it's like live beyond her means or like not meet expectations. I just wanted to comment about that. I don't think there's anything inward looking about that to be to to ensure that people can provide what they can provide and not if they can't provide what you're expecting them to provide. I think I don't think I'm going round about on this. I just want to say I don't think there's anything inward looking about this. And I think it's really important to trust what Sharon and the staff think they are able to provide in the interim space. And I liked Eugene's suggestion of looking at this somewhere down the road. But I'm also okay with Austin's suggestion right now. Thanks. I may be mishearing. I thought I heard the library director said that adding $25,000 the programming budget. So long as it's understood that that line might be dramatically underspent is fine with her. And from a budgeting point of view, why assume we're going to now meet in six months and then have to come up with more money to do this? Why not say we'll put in $25,000 more into the programming budget. But everybody needs to understand that it's not a mandate. It's a set of resources. Anybody else want to say anything about this question? And then I'm going to ask Bob if he wants to make his motion to make his motion. Okay, I will just note that during the month of February, the amount of gifts to the capital campaign was $2,500 as compared to the previous month of 8,000, which is on the previous month before that, which is 30,000. The amount that we have gotten in this last month has been pitiful. The amount that was given to the capital campaign was $1,200. I think if we are ignoring those kinds of signals, I think we are going to be doing the wrong thing. But I will make my motion. I do not expect that we will simply put fake dollars into a fake budget and ignore it when it comes to actual activity. This is a plan of action. That's what a budget's about. So my recommendation, my motion is to add $25,000 to the programming line to be balanced by an increase in the gifts and grants line of $25,000 and the grand total to be therefore raised by $25,000. Is there a second to Bob's motion? Well, I'm going to second it. I take second Bob's motion. Bob, I was kind of almost with you until you argued for your motion. I'm not talking about fake dollars. I don't think what the capital campaign has done is pitiful. Either do I. Well, I need you to listen now, just for a minute if it's okay. Sure. Well, that was the word you used. You said last month, total was pitiful. I don't regard it as pitiful. I regard it as part of a process. But in any case, I thought we had a solution to this, but I don't think it's fake to offer resources for this and to say to the director, you do what you can with these resources. Budgets are overspending some lines, underspent in other lines. And I certainly wouldn't want it understood that if we were to increase the budget line for programming that we are mandating the director to run programs. What we're doing is we're authorizing her to do it. And we're saying here were sources if you can do it. Lee? I will vote in favor of the motion. And I thank the president of the board of trustees for his solemnonic wisdom. Okay. Other other comments about budget. Now we're right. We're revoting to increase budget line for programming. And then we've got to vote on the budget. So this is just to change the budget line for programming and the revenue source that Bob has identified. Anything else you want to set on that? Okay. So on the question of increasing the budget line for programming, Lee Edwards. I. Farah. Yes. Tammy. No. Gene. Yes. Bob. Yes. And Austin votes yes. So now we come back to the budget. Is there anything else that anybody wants to say about the budget? Okay. So the motion is to approve the budget proposal for FY 25. As amended. As amended. Okay. Bob on that motion. Yes. Farah. Yes. Lee. Yes. Tammy. Yes. Gene. Yes. And Austin votes yes. Okay. And with thanks to Sharon and the staff for putting together the budget proposal, a lot of work goes into the budget proposal. I think we can feel good about this budget proposal. Budgeting for the library is done, I think, in a really good way. Okay. Next is investment. Bob. At the last meeting, we approved the transfer from Vanguard's outside advisory service to Mercer's advisory service, which is comprised of exactly the same staff, essentially providing much the same services to the extent that we can tell. What we received at our most recent meeting was a report prepared while it was still a Vanguard entity. They have not yet shown us what a Mercer version would look like. They assure us that it will look much the same. But that is where that stands at this moment. With respect to our financial situation, the endowment as of February 29th was $8,964,513.51. The Woodbury fund as of February 29th was $735,169.87. That is a substantial increase over where it was a year ago. Obviously, it is nice to know that we are doing what the market does. This is not something which we can use in terms of determining the endowment draw, because that is based upon quarter ends. March 31st will be the critical number as are June 30th and September 30th and December 31st. Based upon what we have as of last June, the endowment draw will be $354,619, which is, I suppose, really part of the budget report. But that is where that stands. I am still not entirely clear on the access to the new Mercer reports. I will have to be working with Dan Vos on doing that. I assume, Austin, you will need to have your own access again for that. I have told our consultant, our advisor on this, that it is unlikely that by the end of this coming quarter by June 30th that I will still be on this board, because I am at this point planning to move on or about June 14th. So it is time for this board to start to consider who of the existing board members might be interested in serving on the investment committee, maybe by attending some of the sessions that we will hold as we do this transition, and in addition to think about the kind of people that we might hope to join the board to replace me, hopefully with the same interest in budgets and investments that I have. And we should probably consider the possibility of having a non-board member sit on a committee with us on these committees if we found that useful. Thanks, Bob. Bob, do you yet know, I mean, is your plan to move on June 14th? Is that a concrete that's going to happen? Assuming that the inspector who is looking at my house at this time, at this moment, does not find something radically wrong, we have scheduled us to vacate our house by June 14th. The reason that I ask is there's a process that we have to go through to replace you. Correct. It's dependent upon your informing the town, your forming us and informing the town that you will be resigning from the board.  But I think that as soon as you make that determination, if you could let the town let us know so that the process can go forward of replacing you, which involves a process through the town council, because until that is done, it'll be hard for us to figure out our response to what you just said, who from the current board, who might be coming onto the board. I do want to say what I've said in the investment committee. Bob's resignation from the board when that does occur will end a term of really distinguished service to the town and to the board. Bob has been an enormously important member of the board and a real steward of our finances, for which we are all incredibly, incredibly grateful. And he will be incredibly hard to replace both in his expertise and his commitment to the library. Any questions about investments? Okay. Thanks, Bob. Next item is a report from the Friends of the Jones Library System. Is Richard Morse going to make that report? Wow. Okay. Nice to see you. Thank you, Jeremy. Yes. Well, I volunteered for this job knowing that nobody replaces Lou Mainzer. So I'll do my best. There are only a couple of things I want to point out. One is that friends have had rather extensive discussions about the future of the organization. We had a brainstorming session for an hour and a half in the Woodbury room last Monday. So there are these ongoing discussions going on. I can't really, we haven't made any big decisions, but the conversation is occurring. The other thing I think that's important to point out today is that there has been expressed in a couple of meetings now a strong desire for there to be some kind of ongoing contact or interaction between the trustees and the members of the Friends Executive Board. And how we sort of regularize that I think is yet to be determined. But we essentially, we've suggested a sort of a social event, maybe an annual social event where we get together, the trustees and the friends get together. The other possibility is that maybe a trustee would come with Lee because Lee regularly attends, but another trustee would come so that maybe we could see each one of you maybe at least once a year in a Friends meeting. But I actually, it struck me as I've been sitting here listening to the conversation today that I guess I'm even further enlightened that there needs to be more conversation between trustees and friends. So I just want to bring that up and that's all that I have to report this month. Thanks. Thank you, Rich. Sharon, didn't we have an annual prior to before COVID, didn't we have some annual joint meeting? Yeah, before COVID and then we haven't gone back to that. We've kind of all just been involved in the building project. Yeah. No, we, I remember we did those meetings, they were great. That was wonderful. So you'll work with the friends and come up with a proposal for how to resume an even closer collaboration so that we can meet with the friends in whatever way they and we find most appropriate. But yeah, I remember those meetings. Okay, any other questions about the friends? We're grateful, Rich, for the work that you do. We're grateful for the friends, the work that the friends do and we'll be eager to hear the results of your deliberations about the future of the organization. But thanks. Gratitude please. Thank you. Director's report. During the last friends meeting, no, the friends meeting on February 24th, they approved that $500 be withdrawn from Woodbury for adult programming. And so now I would like you all to approve that as well. Okay, would someone please make a motion? So moved. I moved $500 from the Woodbury fund for adult programming. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Good. Thanks for the second. Okay, any discussion? Voting to approve, Bob? Sure. I think it's fine. Farah? Yes. Gene? Yes. Lee? Yes. Tammy? Yes. And Austin votes yes. Sharon? That's it. That's all for me. Okay. I had one last thing if I could. Sure, Bob. In the 990, which we have to file each year with the federal government, we answer certain questions. And the answers are, do we have a written conflict of interest policy? And the answer is no. Do we have a whistleblower policy? And the answer is no. Do we have a retention and destruction policy? And the answer was no. I think perhaps PPP should take a look at those questions. But the question of should we have a whistleblower policy? Should we have over the other two? Conflict of interest and retention and destruction. Good. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Tammy, if you would add that to the agenda, that would be great. Okay. Nice seeing you all. Stay well, everybody. And we'll look forward to seeing you at our next meeting. We're adjourned. Bye.