Let me give you an example. Traders from Djibouti selling to Kenya, or traders from Kenya selling to Djibouti, have to look for U.S. dollars. How is U.S. dollars part of the trade between Djibouti and Kenya? Why? Kenya president urges countries to get rid of the U.S. dollars. Since last year, Kenyan importers such as oil marketers and manufacturers have complained about a massive imbalance in demand and supply of U.S. dollars, forcing them to acquire in large quantities and at prices far above the official rate. In fact, the Kenya Association of Manufacturers said last year that the currency crisis had strained relations with suppliers at a time when competition for raw materials had increased due to rising demand and ongoing supply chain limitations. This disparity has caused the Kenyan currency to lose roughly 12.1% of its value since the beginning of the year, trading at around 138.33 units per dollar, causing the price of critical inputs such as fuel and raw materials to soar. So it was no surprise when Kenya's president William Ruto advocated in a recent speech to the Djibouti parliament that African nations forgo the use of dollars for intercontinental trade. Usually traders in Djibouti and Kenya have to acquire U.S. dollars before engaging in trade, but during his speech President Ruto questioned the necessity of involving the U.S. currency in the trade activities between the two nations. He emphasized that there is no valid basis for this practice, and he urged that transactions between the two countries be conducted in local currencies. He went on to discuss the African Export-Infort Bank, Ephricks and Bank, which provided a system that allows traders on the continent to conduct commerce in their various local currencies. He then stressed that the objective is not to oppose the U.S. currency, but rather to promote more open trade, and that purchases from the U.S. can still be handled in U.S. dollars. President Ruto's proposal comes at a time when some countries are lobbying for global de-dolarization and looking for alternatives to the U.S. dollar, with countries such as China and Russia currently trading in their own currencies. During a forum in the African Continental Free Trade Area, AFC-FTA, President Ruto yet again underlined the need for African countries to ditch the U.S. dollar on trade deals. He urged them to take the initial steps toward replacing the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency by adopting a pan-African settlement system to facilitate intra-African commerce. This alternative payment system, also known as PAPSS, was inaugurated in January 2022 and allows African countries to trade among themselves using their individual currencies. Backed by the African Union and African Central Banks, the system for intra-African trade was developed by African Export-Import Bank, Ephricks and Bank, and African Continental Free Trade Area, AFC-FTA, Secretariat. Explaining why African countries must abandon the dollar, the Kenyan leader reportedly said, we are all struggling to make payments for goods and services from one country to another because of differences in currencies. And in the middle of all these, we are all subjected to a dollar environment. And he further explained that when the settlement system is in play, business people's only concern would be how to move goods and services while the arduous task of currencies will be left to Afrik Zimbank, a pan-African multilateral trade finance institution. While some people have applauded the President on his stance, others have cautioned that implementing President Ruto's call for a shift away from the US dollar may face challenges. What do you think? Do leave your comments in the comment section below and don't forget to like, subscribe, and put on the notification bell if you are new to our channel.


I'm going to decide that we have a quorum and Jonathan from Marshfield, he's got a wisdom to pick him up today so he'll be joining us by phone if I can get him straightened.  I get that. I'm going to try to catch up with him as we go. So I have 604, I will call the April 2019 meeting of the CBFiber governing board to order. Any additions or changes to the agenda? I'm going to add, I don't know if Rama is here or coming or anything, I didn't put the financial policies on the agenda this time around, the ones that we had talked about at the last meeting, that was an oversight on my part and I was, if Rama was going to be here, I was going to add an item. So I think what I'm going to do is I will add that to the end of the agenda and if he shows up then we will discuss those and if not, we won't. Great, any public comment, any commentary on anything that's not on the agenda? So I mailed you just to let everybody else know, I did put in for a CABIT community, CABIT has an investment fund called a CABIT community investment fund and I put in for $500 to help with our whole match stuff and I should find out tonight, I don't know how they're meeting tonight, whether or not they're going to approve just to let everybody know. Hey Jonathan, can you hear me? Great, I'm going to turn you up to maximum volume so everybody can hear you. This is John Williams from Marshfield filling in for Jim Barlow, who is actually stepping aside from the board as he's been appointed to the Twinfield School District. That is correct, hi everyone. So in order to abide by state law when we have a board member attending remotely, any votes that we take need to be done by roll call. So it's all good, I don't think we'll have anything super contentious and we don't have a full board here tonight anyway so it should go reasonably quickly. And there are a handful of people here who are maybe not new to the board but who are new to other folks. So if we do a round of introductions, I'll start and then John will ask you to do the same and we'll go around counterclockwise here, clockwise here. So I'm Jeremy Hansen, the chair from Berlin. I'm John Williams from the town of Marshfield. Which way do you want to go? This way. Phil Hayant from Mental Sex. I'm Tom McMurdo, I'm new, I'm the alternate from East Palm Fillion. Andrew Gilbert, delegate from Cabot. Skip Lindsey, newly appointed delegate from Woodbury. Jeremy Matt, alternate from Plainfield. Barry Bernstein, president of the board of Washington, let's go up. Jerry Diamantidis, alternate from Berlin. David Healy, delegate from Calis. Bob Burley, delegate from Elmore. Tom Fisher, representative for the executive here. Michael Burgram, delegate from Plainfield. Jared Thomas, alternate from Calis. Okay, I think we've got everybody now. Moving past public comment. Treasurer's report, let's stick a pin in that one and when Becca arrives we can come back to that if she doesn't arrive in the next hour or so. I have some information that I can share with you and we can come back to that. So we're going to skip that one for the moment. Valley Net meeting. We were invited to have a meeting with Valley Net, which to bring everybody up to speed and for those of you that don't remember or that don't know, EC Fiber is a communications union district just to the south of us comprising 24 towns actually including Montpelier, one of our member towns. They do not have any employees, they do not do anything day to day except have board meetings like this. The day to day operations are done by Valley Net, which is a non-profit internet service provider that does everything basically. I had previously spoken with them asking them if they would be willing to consider being our operator, our operating company and with the idea that we would look at the budget that we had put together for this year sort of aspirationally that we build five or six miles of fiber in Roxbury or Northfield or something like that and I asked them what they thought and they said two small potatoes. Not anything that we'd be interested in doing, the costs of them wrapping up and getting something like that working, it just didn't make sense at that scale. So again email from Carol LeRoe and she said would you like to come down and talk about how we can work together and I said sure, I said can I bring a board member along and I happened to be meeting with Jerry about USDA stuff and I said Jerry, want to join me? So we zipped down there and we met with Carol and Valley Net's board chair whose name is eluding me for the moment. Stan. Thank you. I met with Carol and Stan and if I'm misstating any of this Jerry feel free to correct me. It was rather surprising when they came to us and they said you know if this thing that the legislature is looking to pass soon which is essentially putting state backed loan money in Vita, we want to help you write the application for that Vita loan and build and operate your network and I said oh well that sounds amazing and they said you know let's look at the portions of the network that are contiguous to the existing network that they manage, Roxbury, Northfield, Williamstown. They have customers in Roxbury right now and yeah and that was talking about how that might work, what might happen from there and they offered to essentially give us this partial business plan for those three lower towns and we ended up actually and when Jerry wrote the narrative and the budget for the USDA grant included that as $20,000 of in-kind financial work or whatever I don't know what we need. Did that go in as in-kind? I don't think that went in as in-kind. Okay. Yeah we had talked about it. It didn't go in as jobs. Okay. They said that it would take this many jobs to get this thing going in the next three years. Okay. I know we were talking about both of those things. No I take that back. He did put some in-kind services in there. I stand corrected. Okay. He did put a small amount for in-kind in getting it going. So yeah so they proposed essentially getting us going and provided that we can come with the money in this case the Vita grant that is not even quite approved yet. Vita loan. What's that? No. The Vita loan. Thank you. The Vita loan. But that they would essentially get us started which to me was incredible. And I think the thing that they were looking for in exchange was essentially some guarantee that they would continue to do the operator for a stretch of time like three, five years ago. Yeah. Didn't they say? Yes. But it was short, it was relatively short term and it also was not going to be an exclusive agreement so that if we wanted to do something in the north end let's say of the service area they wouldn't have any control whatsoever over that. Okay. We would be free to use multiple operators if you will if we wanted to.  We never got, they were going to follow up with something written I thought. And they expected that they still will. Okay. They just haven't looked into it. Yeah, I haven't seen it. So I'll put that out there. I mean that's my report back. Any thoughts? So just a question. So they don't have any interest in being the operator for the whole? Yeah. Oh, okay. But they want to get us started. Yeah. And they very well might. Okay. But they're currently building in New Hampshire. So Valley Net and not EC fiber is going out into Lyme, New Hampshire and building fiber networks there separate from what EC fiber is doing. So they are already sort of coloring outside of the EC fiber lines as it stands. Yeah, I think from the discussion with Stan he sounded pretty interested in keeping things going in Vermont and building out in Vermont and seeing this grant opportunity and our situation is something that he would like to be able to tap into to keep himself and his folks and expand what he's doing in Vermont. We didn't know what to expect. I don't think we expected that in the room. No. No.  We walked in there and they kind of laid that in our lap. Just kind of stared at each other for a second. Any other thoughts? What's this more specifics on the veto loan? Like is it a plan? Is it a build out? It's an infrastructure. It's for building stuff. For building stuff. I mean, presumably we can still pick any other operator we wanted to. A lot of this is just convenience and alignment. Right. In order to go get a loan like that you have to come with a build plan. Yeah. Yeah. So like the guy from Fujitsu said, here's the spectrum of services. Here's the board level plan and then there's like the ready for investors plan. And Stan is saying he's going to hand us the ready for the loan plan. Essentially using their numbers, expecting that, you know, we're going to use roughly their model for the network using their same sort of equipment, roughly using their same policies. And that would be something that we would have to adopt though. I mean, there are operational policies that that's still the way we want to go. He's going to still expect that we're also going to roughly follow the monthly fee schedule. I think we have some flexibility there to talk about that just based on how things go from there. I would also add that we were kind of taken aback. So we're throwing questions and probably having the worst poker face possible. But we're throwing questions and there's nothing in this that I heard and we haven't seen anything written. There's nothing where we're giving up any autonomy here and we can make other decisions. We can make concurrent decisions that are different from whatever relationship we decide to have with ValiNet. I'm really looking forward to seeing what they write up for us because it could be a good opportunity to get a leg up. Or we might decide that for whatever reason ties our hands together too much and we don't want to operate that way. But he gave a good talk. Where do we have the RFP part? Were we required some level amounts of how much you wanted to go after for money and that requires an RFP? Is this fall into that? No. Supposing that we don't get the USDA grant, this is still something separate. But it dovetails nicely if we do get the USDA grant, if we do do the feasibility study and the business plan and we hire whoever for that. That's going to be a plan for the whole district. We're going to have some immediate build plans for the southern part of the district it sounds like. But then we can figure out how do we then leverage that to maybe target some of the feasibility study down there and then the business plan a schedule for how we expand from there or something like that. I'm a little concerned that, well I don't have any concerns. Given your first impression of these people, what impression did you walk away with for their motivation of this surprise offer? And I'll get into explaining why I'm asking a question here. Did you think that this was a charitable offer on their part? Did you think this was birds of a feather kind of an offer to try to help you out? Or do you think this represents from their standpoint, if I were sitting on their board of directors where I try to sell this to the shareholders by saying here is a low cost opportunity at incremental business down the road? They're a non-profit. And frankly I wouldn't be sitting here if it wasn't for them. The vast majority of my knowledge that I have about broadband in Vermont comes from them. So they've also been active in outreach to the legislature and other folks who are interested in building broadband networks in Vermont. So I think it is a... So this is an act of friendship. You don't see this as their viewing it as a business development opportunity. Even non-profits have to have a viable business now. The question is what do you do with the excess money and that's the only difference. Right. And I think that's certainly part of it though. There's economies of scale clearly that are involved. Well, sitting in non-profits and sitting on for-profit private sector corporations, more business is good as long as the integration model works between two different entities. I'm getting ahead of myself here. I think that what their proposal looks like and having lived through a number of mergers and acquisitions, I can tell you that the hard work begins when you try to integrate two different systems. The good news is that we don't have a system yet. Other than the buy loss that we want. The bad news is that we may not be smart enough to know what a good system is. So I would say it's all three of the things you proposed. I'm sure that there is real business interest involved here. And that doesn't bother me. Doesn't bother me at all. I didn't think it did. Yeah. A good deal together, both parties have to have good motivation. I'm just looking. The mechanics of putting a deal together are simple compared to finding motivated and reliable partners. So they're good people. Yep. They definitely are good people. They definitely are motivated mostly for altruistic reasons. They do see in their future where they're going to finally build out all their towns. And then they're going to have to either start lowering rates or expanding or something because they're going to have more revenue than they need for their nonprofit, which is what you partly were looting to. So there's that. I have a couple of questions about it that we should take back to them. One is they aren't done with their build out. And their member towns, I'm wondering if their board with the EC fiber board, not Ballinette, but the EC fiber board would object to Ballinette prioritizing some CV fiber towns because of this imminent contractor deal over some of their towns not being served first. There's the possibility of that, especially in the life of Carol, Carol, who's the department CEO of Bill Ballinette, having mentioned that a significant problem for them is that their contractors are not able to keep up with all that they want them to do. So there's sort of a shortage of labor. There's no big concern that we should express and make sure that we won't get short-shripped if we do go with them and it won't turn into some kind of political problem in the EC fiber organization. So that's one thing I want to say. Another thing is if we're going to use, excuse me, we're going to use their same networking. If we're going to use their same hardware, if we're going to use their same system, it will be an easy integration for them to go with us. But then the point we just heard is that that's going to tie us to those systems and those pieces of equipment. And so, yes, we could always go with other organizations for different parts, but it gets very inefficient quickly when you have different systems coming to integrate. So that's another thing we have to look at really closely. David, go ahead. So to me, I would like to have us make our own technology advice, get our own technology advice in terms of what we ought to be deploying in the future and not making sure that something that's dialing it in PC5 would decide that eight years ago was the right solution to be stuck with that kind of technology. Well, I can speak to that. They switched technology recently a year or two ago. And I like what they're using. It's expensive. That's the thing we may be concerned with. They had stuff that worked well, but they switched to something that works better. So it's not a real technology that they're stuck with. I guess I'd like an independent one. So it costs them a lot of money to switch. And so making a wise decision early is really important. What is the relationship between EC Fiber and Valinant? And will it be the same relationship between our communications union district and Valinant? I would expect it would be quite similar. So what is the relationship? I'll put it specific. When the system seeks financing, who seeks the financing? EC Fiber or CB Fiber is the case maybe. And EC Fiber owns the infrastructure. So we have a contract with Valinant to perform operating services. Correct. And they contract out to a builder to do it. To be installed. The actual construction. But the administrative functions of the system is Valinant. Building tech support, doing the drops to the individual houses. Doing the drops? They contract out most of the drops but they do some of them themselves. The science there. That has changed periodically. These are very, very good points. There is a fairly well understood way to get through these normals. The first thing we need is some sort of description of exactly what the relationship will be. And that would include also the technology, the operating guidelines and stuff like this. When public corporations merge, there's essentially a ruling model which comes from the Securities and Exchange Commission which requires what's called system integration teams. We can form our own small team of system integrating people to look at what they've got and compare it with what we want and then nibble away at any points of friction. But for instance, a major corporate acquisition, senior executives from each company, the acquired company and the acquiring company are put into what's called a white room. And their job is to make sure that everything works in the new company. Order administration, customer service, manufacturing, parts, numbers, inventory. And their job ends when the integration is complete. They can no longer remain with the surviving company. So it's a beautiful model that prevents conflict of interest. But the techniques and the approaches are well known, well understood. We can embrace all of the concerns that are surfacing right now by having a good systems integration team. And I think some of that can come out of our process when we get to the plan from ValleyNet and we are hiring our consultants to do the feasibility study and business plan. And so we can have that outside person that will scratch that itch that David identified making sure that we're making the technology choices and the system choices that we want. And then how does that then mesh with what ValleyNet's doing? In parallel with their anticipated documents, we may want to begin considering writing down what some of our goals and objectives are in the proposed merger so that the integration team has some guidance. That makes sense. It was like a merger, but it is an merger. I'm just saying use the model because it works. And the other thing about the model is that the two companies merging have systems to integrate. We don't. And we have different board members with different ideas. But on each of the previous conversations, how do we get what we look for? I want my own technology. These are all valid concerns. We just have to surface them in a disciplined fashion. Is that a quick question? How does the document that they're putting together relate to the business? Well, I expect it's going to be, if we accept it, if that's something that we want to go forward with that will integrate in some way to what's going forward. I mean, if we decide to just do a lighter touch with what these guys are talking about and just simply to accept what they offer and move forward, then they're going to start doing paperwork and operations and helping us get a loan and then building. And then that might be a phase one of a larger picture, the larger business plan, the larger strategic goals. I think we could take that plan and hand it to the consultants who are hiring and say, would you think of this? We kind of like it, but we're not the experts. We're more of an expert. What do you think of this? If you like it, integrate it into what you were going to do. If you don't, pick it apart and tell us which parts you're strong and which aren't. It would be a wonderful opportunity to have extra work already done and it might lower the cost of our study as well. I think they still have planning work to do, but did you get a sense in the room of how fast they're thinking that would get rolled out to the point of like actually having customers coming online? So it's all, I mean, this particular plan was contingent on the VEDA loan being coming into existence. It was passed in the House. It's in the Senate. I don't, I expect it would land in Senate finance. Has it been assigned? Okay. So assuming it gets passed and I think all signs are pointing to that it will, I think, what did he say? He said he was looking like application in January of 2020 for the loan. And a year to something, something get in service. Yeah. So he, so I think he was looking at the end of 2020. I'm hoping it would be sooner than that. And for them, but for the law, for the loan being available. And it very well might be. I think he was... I don't think VEDA won't, I think VEDA will need six months. Just to learn that it's the... Yeah, to feel comfortable starting to accept applications. Cool. Anything else on this Valley Net thing? So we will, I'm sure we will be coming back to that in some form or another. Next one. Northern Borders Grant Application. So we talked about Northern Borders Regional Commission with the most recent farm bill. Now covers all of the state of Vermont. So that means that even down here in central Vermont we can take advantage of these grants that were previously only available to folks up in the kingdom. He put in a letter of intent to apply for this as CB Fiber. Thank you for that. I appreciate that, David. He wrote it. I signed it. It was great. There's another opportunity for a partnership though. And I want to just read you a little bit of what's in mind. So there was a phone call that was spearheaded by Ben Doyle at USDA again with a whole bunch of folks who are looking at building out broadband in Vermont. And the idea that was pitched there and that was generally got a lot of support was the idea of why not everybody that's doing what we're trying to do. And that's, you know, has had various parts of planning. Why doesn't everybody all go in on one big Northern Borders Grant? So that's including folks up in the kingdom. That's including folks in Newbury. You were on that mailing list, Michael. You weren't on the call, as I recall. No, I didn't. I didn't get the email. I didn't get the email, so. MB at kfiber.net was Ben Doyle's. I got the after meeting email. Yeah, that's what I got. I got the after meeting. Okay. I didn't know what was happening. Oh, okay. I just expected them. I called them right after that. Yeah. There's another group that's looking at creating a union district. Also up in the kingdom. I'm trying to remember where he was. Anyways, I can, I can look back through my notes. This guy in London. Yeah. Yes. And then there's also MVDAs sort of in the north. Whatever the economic development. Yeah. Collaborative whatever they call it. Any tech collaborative. Yeah. Those people. Yeah. Yes. So the idea here was that and they have, they have also submitted a letter of intent. Who's spearheading this? Yeah. NBDA. Yeah. Yeah. So NBDA, which is Northern Vermont Development Association. Development Corporation. Development Corporation. Okay. Okay. Association. Association. Yeah. So. Association. Yeah. So NBDA submitted and a letter of intent says, and we'll take the lead on putting together an application in cooperation with other entities, including those outside of NBDA service area. If you're interested in pursuing this collaborative opportunity, which is why it's on our agenda right now. And believe that your community or initiative could benefit from the project. Please contact Dave Snedeker, the executive director. And the things that the Northern Borders Grant could do, and there's a bullet to list, I'll just briefly read, could provide technical assistance to communities and help them organize or stand up CUDs. We got that done already. Facilitate local conversations capacity buildings for communities interested in expanding broadband and access and that would be outside of the CUD structure. Position communities and CUDs for additional planning and implement implementation funding, whether through NBRC, USDA, and so on and so on. Essentially, one of the things that they talked about in the call was essentially having someone having a position funded who could essentially spearhead some of these efforts statewide, which I realize is somewhat redundant with what the That was what the legislature was looking to fund in the Department of Public Service as a broadband community broadband specialist or I don't remember what they called it. So you called Ben after this. Did you get any sort of different, any different read from what he said other than that? No, but I can't speak to the person they want to hire. Is it slightly different role than what the department would have? The department person would be eventually an expert who could help communities do stuff and be of liaison with the state government. And what they want to do in the N.E.K. and now they're talking about possibly statewide is have somebody who's a clearing house and advocate. I mean, there are two roles for us, but they're not the same. And it's good to have something out of government as well as in my experience. So I think it's a good idea. So I don't know if going into this collaborative application would prevent us from sending our own application in or if we still want to do that. But again, I put it out there. We can make a choice. Does anybody know whether doing one precludes the other? I review the grants. Okay. So we could do both conceivably. My understanding right now is it's about a four or five to one ratio of requests to the funds. Sorry, you've got the level of competition. There's no S and border. It's Northern border. Is it? Yeah. Oh, I kept correcting Northern border to Northern borders. Could one of these be planning funds at this point? So I think for the one with the NBDA group that it would. But that's a more implementation. Yeah, so we were looking for actual construction funds. So there's a more value to match where there's infrastructure to match sort of the NBDA. So should we tell them? This is Jonathan. I'm just curious. I know that there's a $250,000 cap and a $500,000 cap. I'm just curious as to if we fall under the $500,000 cap for grant application for Northern regional condition. $250,000. Ken Jones just said it's $250,000. Okay. And this collaborative thing is talking about not a construction grant. It's not an infrastructure grant. It's a support. It's a support system. For like next year going for the infrastructure grant. So shall we tell them yes that we're interested? One more question? Yeah. Ken, what's the dollar cap on for a construction grant? That's not still $250,000. Yeah. Well that is it. Yeah, $250,000. Unless, yeah, the cooperative grants would, you'd have to have two pretty separate entities working together. I think even ideally across multiple states. That gets you to $500,000. And then $500,000 is it. Okay. By the way, there's a census block in Barrie that's a disadvantaged census block. So if you want, in terms of saying you got employees and grow a business, you'd have to locate the office. This one's census block in Barrie. Is there office space in that census block? I don't know. Probably downtown. It's on this side of Main Street. It's sort of weird. The Barrie City Development Corporation would be helpful in that regard. And all of them will count. So two years ago. Exactly. The Town of Craftsburg type for an NDRC grant. Asked for 250. Worked with the staff at the commission. They thought 250 was the right number. It ended up we got 231. Wow. Yep. That's pretty good. It's not enough money. I know. So we went to the state and we got the difference. So that works. Hi everyone. This is Jonathan. I'm sorry to keep interrupting. I'm looking at the application manual right now. And I am familiar with this grant opportunity for my job. But it seems like that for fiscal year 2019, there is a $500,000 cap for infrastructure projects. And that does include telecommunications projects as defined under a site federal statute. But so I don't know. I think there is actually about $1000. I'll double check that. Okay. So shall we try to do both? I mean the letter of intent is in for both already. That deadline's passed. Shall I tell the folks? I guess how would we use that service? We would have something like a part-time staff person that could help with other grants and other sort of organizational capacity. Yep. And we could also take what our requirements are and present that to them and say that this is something that we're interested in. Manage our website. Maybe not. Were you looped in on that, Barry? What's that? Were you looped in on this Northern border? I like Michael got the post. The fact. Okay. So could this help from your perspective, you guys, where you would have a collaborative staff or outside of your organization such that you could use them for stuff that you can't task your own staff with? Well, I don't know if you want to be appropriate. I can address it now. We're applying for a Northern border directly. But it's for feasibility study and business plan for our whole territory, 41 condoms. And as part of that grant, we would probably be working in part with maybe Carol along to help us with consulting. And depending on who you guys ended up with consultants, because we have a broader perspective, but if we brought a territory and a different little bit, I'd say, broader integration that we have to deal with, if we ended up with the same consultants and would probably overlap and lower our costs, I think that's a potential feasibility. At this point, from going to the Northern border session they had, it doesn't look like technically this money will not be available for spending until October unless you get a special waiver on it. And the earliest it would be available would be sometime in August. So I don't know how that's going to overlap with, I don't know where you are in terms of the rural development grant or when they said they're going to either notify you or when the money would be available. That's kind of what we're at this morning. That I don't know exactly. Do you know the timeline in that off-hand? I mean, technically our application is not fully submitted yet. I still have physical papers to hand to them. Once that gets to them, then our application begins. And that's something we'll talk about more in a bit. I've got a little bit of chasing of grants. It's mildly amusing and a lot of fun to do. Just what I'd like to do is part of the grant chasing. Making ourselves as pretty as we can to get the money. I'd also like to see us do a reasonable job of due diligence of finding out what the continuing requirements are of meeting and fulfilling the grant. An example is I got grants from the EPA and from the state drinking water fund and a bunch of other stuff to build a public drinking water system. And the recurrent requirements both administratively, financially, and from a quality standpoint of both dealing with DEC and with EPA are a cost, an ongoing cost. So let's go in with our eyes open. Grab all the money we can get and make sure we're capable of complying with the follow-up requirements that every grant comes with. So if you're going to take the USDA in one hand and the NBRC in the other, difficulty, USDA compared to NBRC. NBRC is a lot easier to comply with. They're still diligent, but they don't have quite as much bureaucracy and they're easier to work with. Yeah, that's good news. Yeah. And it's very good news. And you're not dealing with Vermont's DEC. What's DEC? That's the environment, which runs water and they're scared because the EPA told them Vermont's going to lose all of its federal funding if it doesn't hurry up and clean up Lake Champlain. So they're not fun to deal with. So not hearing any sort of like outpouring of anger, I think I will read the room and say that we're going to go forward with both of them with the grant application that David so kindly wrote the letter of intent for. What was the amount of that? I thought it was 500,000, but... So they didn't shout at us when we... So that was for an infrastructure grant? Yeah. Where did I put that? That was bold. It wasn't a letter of intent. There is a one-to-one match. What's the match? One-to-one. Alright, let's see. How are we doing on that 12-5? How about those donations? So we have that routing number from your bank account. We can't arrive next week. Yeah, you did say 500,000 and the idea was to use this for construction. I guess if you're... Well, we can turn it into an application. Well, sure, sure. But I think combining this with the Vita loan, if that's possible. Right. Yeah, something like that. That's what I was thinking. Yeah, and that could be... I would just add that all work that would be funded through this specific grant opportunity would have to be completed by 2022. I think we can spend money that fast. Alright, so I'm going to take by silent consensus that we'll move forward with both of these. I will contact the folks that put in the other letter of intent and we'll go from there. Awesome. Alright. I would suggest that we're probably adding more to their application than we can get out of it. We'll still get something out of it. There's no reason not to cooperate. Sure. And they specifically invited us to be a part of it as well. So if it's not too forward, are you intending on joining the kind of larger consortium? I don't have the intent, but I'm considering it. Alright. Next up, we've got Washington Electric co-op. Welcome again, Barry. Thank you.  I don't know if I have anything else to say. We decided not to go ahead with the real development because of the March 29 deadline, which is for application. So the northern border has actually made more sense to us because it gave us more time. I would say we're not quite as nimble in terms of we have to really think some things through in order to take a look at what we're doing. But we did put in the letter of intent. We're basically asking for a $90,000 grant to do a feasibility study and a business plan for the 41 towns in WEC. And let me just say when I said I didn't know about the other one, you know, we're really unsure exactly what our role is going to be and what role we'll take on. So we're always keeping in mind a collaboration process with you and other folks. Our goal is to get this to happen for our members if we can without going too far out on the limb where we outstretch what our capability is to deliver our electric services. So I've really been, a lot's happened for us just in our moving on this in the last four months. Because we've talked with Michael and David and Carol and we've met with Magellan folks. And we're just trying to process all of it. So we're not locked into anything in terms of in or out. My individual, and I think the board will support this, is to try to help you guys and us and however we can do that. We're just going to try to keep this open as we can as we look at it. We're looking at what we can, I mean the things we have to evaluate is what Fiber does for our own business infrastructure, for the co-op infrastructure, which if we can get some of that done either through grants or whatever, that's going to help lower the cost of the hookup to the house. The discussion we had when we first started taking a look at this in November, December, just a discussion was, we're concerned about EC Fiber's number that they use, it's 75 dollars to be able to hook up for many of our members who are elders and low income and orange and some in Washington and Caledonia. So that's, you know, in my opinion I think to make this successful we've got to be able to pull out grants. Obviously with any of these more collaboration we do the better we're going to be in applying for grants because that's what they're looking for. Velco has been, we've been in discussions with Velco about looking at our substations with Fiber from theirs to our substations to our main office. To me that would be a really big thing because it's just going to help us tie into that structure it's going to help you tie into us and we do have the unique advantage and what Carol and Michael have pointed out is we own our own poles so we just have to get clear on the added task that we're taking on and how to best do that. So, you know, I'm pretty excited about it as Steve know who came in who was on the phone the other day and as I said to Jeremy and Michael and David all of you I'm really appreciative of you guys pushing this because I think that's got us to get into it and we'll just have to see where we can go because I think the real again this is an opinion based on not a lot of experience but I think that if we could pull down one of those federal grants you know that has 200 million dollars but some number that we could all do that would really help bring down that cost which I think is critical. A lot of co-ops I think I mentioned that I'm the Vermont Delegate Director I'm the National Rural Electrification Co-operative Association and I'm the Business and Technology Committee and so I'm looking and gathering information on a lot of co-ops that are doing this across the country in different modes some are just doing the backbone some are bringing services all the way to the end user. The question I think in my mind and concern is this whole thing about consensus blocks and there is something in the legislation I think coming forward federally Michael you may be able to address this and by 2020 they're asking if the legislation passes they're not going to ask for yet is it the Federal Trade Commission to review the information they're using have you seen it? I just saw something on that recently come through. No I'm not aware of what you're saying. Yeah so it's kind of addressing this thing about like Magellan was saying about us going after a waiver on these things. So that was the USDA waiver we were talking about. The contaminated census block. Yeah yeah so I'm not sure what it was but basically there's a push to get them to use different information and it seemed to me from what I've read it that it was in line with maybe it's not. Well I mean the public service department is pretty aware of this one. The census blocks particularly Calis and Plainfield which was supposed to be served by VTEL never got those towers. So technically even though VTEL got funded to serve that area it never got served. So somehow it does have to be cleaned up at some point. Yeah so I think that's going to the challenge for all of us is going to be finding the areas that we can make most successful the soonest so that we can demonstrate that this can work at a rate that's reasonable for people. I guess that's one of the things to feasibility study that we're both in that probably doing. We both have the funds to do it and Calibrary on that will tell us what that take rate is or you're saying take rate isn't that important but obviously the territory you have that's clean is important. It's important. It's just high take rate isn't as important as people think. It's achievable with a lower take rate. I know I happen to be at a meeting in Orlando or a national meeting just happened to have a lunch open bag lunch with somebody sitting next to me he was from Missouri and they did a whole plan. There are 35,000 members but they were feeling they could build out six or seven years with three to five three and a half I think the three point and make it work. It was at less of a number than we are but they had more people. It was close to less miles. They actually have a bigger territory than we had 35,000 spread over and it's pretty rural. Do you have a sense that because you own the polls and you have line workers that this whole $30,000 a mile figure for string and fiber is that something you can take a bite out of? You can close your costs. Let me say all I can repeat is what I've heard from Carol and Michael is that yes I the last conversation I had with Carol was that we might be able to get that down to 22,000 and one of the things that I think we'll have to explore and let me just be very clear with you this is January for every March three months of that I know so much more than I did four months ago and that's very little and I rely on some of the people here but one of the things even though it's more expensive that if we run in the electrical space it's going to save us money it's going to save all of us money whatever we can do to bring that member down is going to make it more peaceful. Explain that to me what are you on? Where are you on the public? Why is that cheaper? Michael you probably know more of the answer on this but I've been told that it's... Yeah go ahead. So if we run the fiber cable in the communication space it's just like Comcast and Consolidated and every other communications carrier we pay for a license either quarterly twice a year or once a year to the poll owner. But they're the poll owner. Right but if it's in the communication space we have to do that even if they are paying themselves so it'll be part of the cost that's one thing. Another is if you're applying for an attachment license in the communication space and by attaching taking your 12 inch space on the pole the phone company's line always is at the bottom and if the phone company that's just... It's going to move on the line. So all of them... everyone has to get lowered if there's no space Oh does the lower one cross the road high enough? Oops it doesn't. If you're up in the electric space there is no so-called make ready because all poles are already there and there's already space available so the make ready costs alone is a huge part of the 30,000. I remember that the cost to... because we presently have 35 or 40 foot poles, some 45 the cost to replace each pole is like four or five thousand dollars we have 20,000 poles so if we can avoid that like I said I got all these bits and pieces like if we can avoid that we avoid that cost which passes all the way down the line for everybody that's the reason that we mention it. I have two more things to do question about the 30,000 easy fiber quotes 30,000 including five drops per mile and they don't just want to get five drops per mile they include the cost of those five drops in their 30,000 no one else figures it that way everyone else says what's the cost per mile plus drops and then you figure out the drop separately each drop separately Michael excuse me? each drop separately the cost per year is like 33,000 a mile and we we kept to the budget some things were higher than expected some things were lower it worked out it varies prices are going up different some of these charge different amounts some places you can get away with hardly any make ready and the other places you have to replace the quarter of the poles so it's hard to predict for sure so I think maybe 25 is a good number to assume as an average and that's before you take these savings of going in the electric space and the last thing I don't mean to... the last thing that's important is if we are in the electric space there are some added costs the line workers have to know what they're doing three things one you have to have they have to be utility qualified line workers every time you're touching the fiber two the way around that is to drop a splice case in a communications space wherever you're going to drop to houses well now we have to pay a pole rent to those spots and we might generate make ready for those particular poles a whole lot less poles than before but that's an added cost and three to be in the electric space we can't use the conventional steel strand over last with fiber because steel is a conductor and it's not allowed in the electric space so you have to use ADSS which is all dielectric self supporting cable and that costs more and the attaching hardware for each pole costs more just trade offs but it's still an advantage but it's not a pure advantage Michael did you feel from what you know that it's that you would tend to want to go there so you could boy the pole I mean replacing poles to me that's the big price it depends on how much your other costs are so as an operator I would rather be in the communications space because we can use different contractors and we can use and our budget would be lower for the construction costs but as a representative for the CUD looking at the immensity of what we want to do and how much money that is the opportunity to save 10% per mile is pretty big and I think I would lean that way so I would hate to deal with this ADSS stuff it's not as good to work with and I would hate to have to always get this other contractor to go up there and pay them extra to do it but I think that the savings outweigh those so that's the thing in our feasibility study that we want to weigh in order to have somebody actually cost it out to see what the numbers are I guess the material is the reason never to do a hybrid like in some places where you get long stretches or something you know you go in the electric space or I don't know but you could go up and down and up and down I mean you're going to go on the green mountain power poles we're not going to necessarily let us in the electric space so we may have to dip down I just got a little scared here so tell me I don't have to get scared when I look at discussion that we're having which is basically what I would call the installation cost issue I would like us also to please be mindful of what I call TCO total cost of ownership it may be more expensive to put it in but is it cheaper in the long run to put it in one way where it says the other so let's look at installation cost but that is a subset of total cost of ownership and we found in a lot of businesses that I've managed to muddy that TCO was the more important determinant for long term viability of being in the business so let's just look at both there's build cost and TCO cost the other question you touched on it in my mind with the difference in materials required in terms of the wires and the structural has anybody made sure that the structural impact on the poles is not adversely affected by one the location up or down or by the weight that's being born there as a pilot I'm very very sensitive to wind loads and other stuff it's not only the vertical load but it's also the wind load let's just be sure that we're not introducing a variable in an adverse weather condition that would cause increased maintenance and repair costs can I speak to that? it's not an issue because these cables are very thin they don't certainly have a load when there's ice on them and so forth but compared to a telephone cable with lots of copper pairs in it or a coaxial cable TV cable they're so tiny from an eye standpoint it's a surface area phenomenon and the weight of them they're so light so secondly even though they are so light the utilities require that every time the bowl line turns or every time it terminates there has to be a counter acting guy into an anchor even if it's the super light fiber we had to put them in all over the place so structurally it's engineered and it's not I've never heard of being an issue but the structural counter force however you put it in there is the same whether it's in the communication space or the electrical space yeah because you'll see that the power company puts guys up higher you put the guy right opposite of your attachment so the angle changes but they have much heavier cables than the fiber is the power company does would there be a greater frequency of outages being up in the electrical space like branches coming down possibly taking out the top end stuff stays in there I have no idea that's a good question maybe we could get a grant we could just throw some branches up and see what happens I'm going to say that for the moment at least structural considerations we can table it's a non-factor cost of ownership is very important and that's going to come out in part of Barry and Wex feasibility study and I expect that we will also have in our feasibility study we will also have a bit of that calculus in our in our study as well knowing knowing what our choices are and being able to make wise full informed choices TCO has been my battle cry for years because that's the thing that a lot of people overlook and it bites the heck out of them down the road just one thing that's up it's been on my mind obviously not just around this but we've been hit with more major storms every year we had five major storms in 2018-4 and 2017 which puts a lot of stress on systems so we definitely when we're looking about communication space for this electrical one also take a look at that impact question because it's important to be ramping up our right-of-way clearing over the next several years pretty intensely and we're also going to be taking out a lot of ash trees but we're going we've had a danger tree removal tree program to take trees 100 up to 100 feet out of the way because that's a lot of what's coming down but we're going to have to get a lot more aggressive which I think I didn't want to get in the weeds here but I was just curious about the ADSS versus the steel wrap cable if there's a tensile strength difference between those two so that kind of ties in with the storm idea the steel strands supported is tensioned more you get less ag the ADSS is engineered to handle that stress it's got this strength member in the middle of the fiber but I haven't heard of it being an issue it's harder to work with through a splicer than this conventional fiber but to manage I seem to remember EC-Fiber reporting that the steel strands supported communication space fiber that they run they've had times where there have been branches come down that's held up by the fiber there is an issue of maintenance when ADSS does break let's say a truck breaks the pole battle happens all over the place frequently surprisingly that'll take out budget whether it's on a steel strand or not but the repair involves splicing in some more fiber when it's ADSS you usually have to go back a stand in each direction to splice it it's just for the strength purpose and so that's a hassle anything else any questions for Barry any other thoughts about potential future relationships with white gore or anything I have a question for you Barry I have two questions I'm not buying your beer tonight why the House committee actually added to their bill feasibility business plan money for electric co-ops and they added it right after you testified to them why is it you've decided to go for NBRC instead of that one we'll take both one is one hasn't passed and two when I when I mentioned that and at present that money won't be available until after at present I don't know what's going to happen to the finance center finance committee because I've raised this issue it was only going to be available after the DPS finished their report which wasn't going to happen until December January so it's all a moving target what we would probably look at if that passes and I talked to Ann Cummings if they and we met with also Commissioner Terny if they will allow that money to happen sooner we will go after it for our match because we have to come up with a 35% match to be 65 it gets hard for us because we're not allowed to subsidize at this point even though in that state statute they're also working on the moving map and that goes back to 1999 when the gas and oil distributors didn't want the co-ops to have an unfair advantage when we were looking at getting into that so it's all moving pieces like I said we didn't want to go ahead with our manager with the our D1 because it's we were in the middle of completing our office and the next thing we have is our rate design so we're just trying to keep the flow moving okay here's my tougher question sure it's not that tough the offer the potential offer from Ballin at would jumpstart CV fiber potentially before WEK is ready to partner with CV fiber we don't know that you ever will but you might we don't want to be cut out of working with any and it's in our interest to not wait for you it's in our interest to proceed to hope to partner with you do you think that Ballin doing three towns in the south tied into their system has any potential for making it more difficult to integrate with your 41 towns I mean to be honest Ballinette may be an option that we would all look at together you know the advantage of us with our system is we have ownership over disadvantages is another thing to add to a system that we already take care of the electrical so the Ballinette model is one model I think we all should look at I think the questions have been asked about what the relationship is and how they're going to deal with all of this if they're already too busy our important questions ask but I think that kind of third party structure is something we should be asking whether it's Ballinette or when we set up an independent one that would do something because we have to we will have to segregate any fiber business we have from the electrical business even if the statute changes out of fairness to electric members so those are the I mean all these questions are great because it's just we all need all the help we can that's why I said we don't have to be fearful we definitely have to be cautious and it's great that Michael's already done work and Carol's done work and it's not like we're just jumping in here totally okay guys what do you want to do this week so that's helpful that was last year's meeting yeah very much so I should point out in terms of the legislation it looks like it's on the agenda for senate finance on Friday at 1.30 so I'm not going to be able to make it but if anybody would be willing to go and represent Friday April 12th 2019 on 1.30 senate finance right on the first floor that's April what April 12th anybody takers I wish I could I'll try to go over there what points are you guys thinking that you would like because I talked to senator come and she was very supportive of all of this and as I said I think that the department hopefully will move that you know money for the co-ops so we could use that but are there other things Michael or any of you I think you should direct that question to Kim are there any ACCD changes to be proposed no ACCD ACCD is always comfortable with the way this and I think generally we have been comfortable with the way it's turned out so you could safely communicate that what we're seeing we're liking I expect that somebody from EC5 or valley net and so on will probably be there I think it's just a walk through with legislative council by the way it's looking here but there is somebody who does not joint fiscal or legislative council that's scheduled to testify but they only got an hour a lot of it so they might have more on this next week because when we did we were asked as a co-op to come in we pitched why this was so important for the inventory the questions we got were all really supportive were you at any of that they were just supportive I think they all in both houses so I can go next week yeah I suspect it's not going to pass out I think they're going to do a walk through get it fresh in everybody's mind because they did talk to us before house energy and tech touched this they were talking about this much more generally when it was still like 6-7 bills so I just say this I was really impressed having been at the legislature for almost 50 years in different capacities I was really happy to see the margin to pass the house I don't know other than resolutions you get anything that's a bad number there were two people who voted against it I think it wasn't that they were negative I think they wanted something more it was details yeah I think the DGA passed that way too oh god thank you yeah okay moving along I just want to say I'm really grateful for the work we're doing well we're grateful for the work this thing would not be happening without a lot of people really pretty much we're just going to need handover to figure out what we're all doing together so we're going to be there hopefully sounds great May 23rd connectivity breakfast I was invited to go down to it's in Dover again I think this southern Vermont economic development initiative about looking at broadband statewide that's organized by I think it's technically organized by but Laura Sebelia who's on House Energy and Tech she's one of the people spearheading economic development particularly through broadband in southern Vermont we were asked to send somebody to represent CV Fiber I can't go because I will be overseas anybody interested in going you'd like to know where you're going and we'll come with you to that I'm going from Berlin to Berlin to the city's the 23rd you take care of those new spearheader fights early no I was funny you mentioned that I was actually booked on WoW Air and then a couple of weeks back but WoW said a week ago last Thursday they said we're not flying anymore by it's a oh well you're in the plane when they see yeah thankfully I had to rebook mine and all my students' flights which was amazing but resolved takers what's that? out of town put it in your schedule on May 23rd there's a lot of folks working towards similar goals down in southern Vermont if you are so inclined or you know somebody who is I've had it let me know okay USDA Rural Development Planning Grant Jerry you want to give us a sure it's in so that's a good step we have I did speak with Susie Poland today and she sent me some go-by's on that last form the budget breakdown thing yeah it has all this federal jargon it looks to me like federal jargon I just didn't know what the column heading meant and she sent me some go-by's I didn't have a chance to look at them yet but I would be able to turn that around and we can get that hand the hard copy package to them I'll be handling that Thursday or Friday but yeah they reviewed our application and there was nothing outstanding other than the standard hard copy stuff that they need that they give you two more weeks to provide thanks to everybody for all your help for all the different things that we needed we've got the five letters of support we've got the two letters of commitment for jobs to me that was really impressive that we got that together so quickly from folks thanks to the folks putting in kind services into that so yeah this will be really good regardless of the specifics of what we do with this money the real needy-gritty specifics of what we do with this money we need whatever information we can get out of this these funds we really do we need somebody that's not a volunteer spending time and effort on this we're doing about as much as volunteers can possibly do so we need somebody on the payroll that's actually working on stuff there's a step towards it so I don't know exactly when we're going to hear back they never said exactly when we were going to hear back from them does anybody have any experience with the USDA and World Development Grants and turnaround times it's always longer than they say I thought they told us it would be May I'm not sure and just one side note if I can when we we're going to both be applying for different things for the Northern border but I think we could possibly offer each other letters of support for each more application which would be helpful because that will again demonstrate that we're collaborating and I think we should be if everybody's comfortable here I think we should both be saying that we're collaborating on the process of getting this to be a reality Northern border and USDA's World Development are happy to work together and if you're applying for an NBRC planning grant and a USDA planning grant on every agency that you're doing that and telling them that you want to combine things is a positive they don't say oh well we're going to give it to you they say oh this is symbiosis we like this so if we haven't done that yet we should we do have to be mindful typically anyway I don't know the specifics of the Northern border but you can't match federal money with federal money typically so you can't use when I went to the Northern border thing I thought that Tim there was in one direction whether I think we matched some Northern border with USDA money that would be great if you can do that that's right so you can match federal money to federal money that's fantastic you can't match NBRC money to USDA but you can do it in the other direction okay okay interesting that's good because it kind of works out chronologically we didn't need it then but we'll need it next time we're done we're going to have so much money we don't need to do feasibility we just build alright any questions on USDA planning grants like I said I expect to have once I have that document from you I have some bank account information and stuff to provide they wanted more specific details about what's actually in our bank account as we said that $15,000 $12,500 that we were joking about before we don't actually have that full $12,500 but they're looking for like show us what you actually have and so we're going to show them what we actually have and we'll adjust it it is what it is okay moving along I'm going to go back to I just saw an email from Becca and she's not going to be here tonight a brief treasurer's report there is a some strangeness on the part of the online donation collection site where they want to charge us as a for-profit entity they can't wrap their brains around the fact that we're a non-profit but not a 501 so I sent Becca all of the IRS guidelines on which section of the federal code that municipalities fall under and why it is tax deductible and why we're a non-profit and so on hoping that they will get that resolved there's $4,300 in the checking account right now I don't have the savings account numbers up in front of me at the moment there's $2,281 in the online donations account for a total of $6,581 would be missing something if I don't have the whole picture of what Becca would normally look at great alright, moving along committee's report back were there any committee meetings since we last met I'll take that as a note short meeting tonight review of back burner items committee assignments and membership so those of you newly attending we have three standing committees we have a business development committee we have a policy it's just a policy committee policy committee and we have a finance committee so if either of you skip or tom if either of you are interested in joining those you can feel free to raise your hand and let me know sure we've got business development which is a little bit more like operational stuff finance which is more connected with the treasurer and the other stuff that goes on there and policy which is policies business development would be great okay so I moved to name skip to the business development committee Jerry DMTD's is the chair of that committee is there a second? second seconded by Phil so we have a motion so I'm also secretarying tonight okay so because we have a remote board member we will do this I will just go around the room David yes so I Bob I hi hi and Jonathan hi excellent so we've got unanimous thanks everybody we have a committee assignments anything we need to push off to committees or ask them to do in the meantime is part of the next meeting reorg right? yes we'll address all that then in terms of like because like with policy yeah so yeah I mean Alan might stay on he's going to be a delegate he's going to be an alternate sorry we can wait until the there's not pending we can wait until the next meeting and then we can at least try to appoint one more sounds like a plan so looking at the back burner items there's the equipment policy that could eventually maybe land in the policy committee planned on a huge fire burning under that one for right now I had a meeting in Waterbury today there is interest from them I expect I'll probably be at their next select board meeting and they will likely be applying in time for the main meeting there's also somebody who lived in Duxbury who at the same time is saying let's talk to the Duxbury select board too because they seem interested so this is maybe where we have the conversation about yeah so do we want to be roughly on the same number as EC fiber so if we take Waterbury Duxbury it kind of makes sense to take more time unless you get a hook there part of the southern part part of the southern part is but there's still large swaths of people who will probably not be served by Wittesfield Wittesfield telecom and there was a little bit of reluctance when I was at the select board it was a year and a half ago a year ago and change they might be interested if we ask them again say that all your neighbors are joining us be like the cool kids and then looking at Washington so we're at 17 now so if we get Waterbury 18 Duxbury 19 Moortown 20 Washington 21 we're curious to talk about going through Stoke to get around to Cabot too yeah now with Woodbury and why there's a linchpin for Elmore and Stoke there's just no way you can now move to 12 and meet our expense constraints plus the scenic beauty plus the scenic beauty which rooms 12 I'll tell you one thing unnatural action interesting you didn't need that visual so I think if we did Waterbury, Duxbury, Moortown and Washington that would be where my comfort level would be start to be exceeded I don't know what anybody else thinks or is that too much there's a time constraint to all of this too folks have got to realize that you can only get so many miles going at a time I don't know how quickly we're going to ramp up and how much money is going to come in our direction but folks might want to sign on but somebody's going to be a year 7 and 8 of this thing sure and if it's one of the original folks that ends up being year 12 you know I'm altruistic but folks might be better served to be in smaller independent clusters and I was clear to the folks in Waterbury they're 90% served by cable they're also doing a complete refurb of their downtown taking all of their utility poles, all of their sewer all of their water and they're redoing all of it in Waterbury Center it's all going underground so I said Waterbury Village and Waterbury Center I'm sorry, Waterbury Village not Waterbury, I'm completing it Waterbury Village is all that stuff's going underground and I said construction costs go is that a limiting factor for us in other words if we're not there when they do the burying will there be an ability to pull fiber later only if they stick the concrete well there's a bunch of people that's going under there right now and there should be space in that I didn't ask they got to be thinking of whoever's doing that but companies let's say first light or might be saying this is our conduit we're paying for it and it's ours and we're not sharing it with anybody Comcast might say the same thing for theirs there's three different fiber bundles that are going through there first light there's consolidated and Comcast must be there's middle-mile fiber there all over the place I don't know if they're sharing a conduit or what's going on there I said you're at 90% cable coverage we're not looking like an attractive initial place that we're going to start I said I don't want to take anything off the table but I said realize that we're starting from the south which it appears that we may what Waterbury does not look much more attractive than Montpelier just saying although as a pass through maybe right down the middle of your served area to get to Ducksburg and you still wait they're aware of that I think but on the other hand they feel like they need to have some sort of forward motion of any sort and I explained to them the difference between the middle-mile fiber that first light has there and why first light does not hook up John Smith on the corner of main street with fiber ever so agenda perhaps sort of nibbled around this but we've never really gotten to it's a tough question really we didn't want to approach this before their feasibility study well our feasibility study if Waterbury joins before we have a feasibility study they will be part of it if Ducksbury joins then they will be part of it but if they're not part of it if we launch the feasibility study and we say here are the currently the 17 towns then we're going to be looking at the 17 towns and the other folks are going to be in afterthought I don't see why the consultant can't consider neighboring towns in their report and say we recommend pour this in against that because of these reasons so I mean that's just another kind of useful to ask before we vote someone in to find out what the results of that study are if Waterbury showed that 35% of the residences and 80% of the businesses would take it's a lot cheaper to run it there than anywhere else perhaps it's the same thing in Montpelier yeah Jeremy let me just make that co-op I talked about in Missouri what they ended up doing is having three or four towns 500 people or whatever come to them even though they weren't in the co-op service story and want to buy into getting hooked up and those towns brought a 90% take rate because we're getting adequate service from the cables so it's just a bit of information and that demand aggregation software that you've been talking about for a while Michael that's so I want to reiterate what I said before contractors this is going to be a growth industry in Vermont I don't know if the contractors are going to be able to meet the demand if all these potential city meetings are successfully getting funded there's going to be a lot of competing projects for manpower and that may figure into our question of how big we want it to be as well okay so future agenda item I think we I mean I guess it can be considered by the feasibility study too but I think we should keep coming back to this so another thing related to the May 14th meeting I will as I mentioned before I will not be here I'm still happy to serve as chair if you will have me again but I will need to attend remotely I'll need to attend remotely and it will be midnight local time that's fine that's doable I will need to coordinate with somebody maybe you Phil just Skype me in or something I'll attend the beginning part of the meeting and then turn it over to whoever gets elected vice chair from there put that on everybody's radar okay Rama's not coming so we're going to skip that financial policies item that approval of March 12th meeting minutes anybody have any feedback or changes to the March 12th meeting minutes and I will make my suggestion in number six I will report this the back up when we pick these out of draft number six it says that we were awarded a think vermont innovation grant for $12,700 it should be $12,500 that's the only change so I move that we accept the meeting minutes of the March 12th 2019 governing board meeting with the previously noted change second we're going to do it by a roll call David start us off again I wasn't at the meeting so I'll have to abstain I'm right in here hi hi abstain okay so motion passes unanimous some abstentions okay so for those of you new to the board we will do a round table everybody gets a chance to begin with anything they like before we wrap things up so start us off David I'm happy Jerry I'm good Bob no issues I'll reiterate something and that is not with an immediate time frame but to consider what we do with the Montpelier as the world being the representative from Montpelier what does it look like to establish a competitive I'm happy I'm good I have a question so with all the grants that I've taken some notes in this is my first meeting so we have several grants that we're applying for several studies that we're going to be ongoing is there a document that exists similar to a project plan that has milestones past dependencies two days so while we've been approved for the Think Vermont Innovation grant which is $12,500 with a match expected match from us $12,500 that application that I submitted did indeed have a sequence of milestones and expectations for how we would spend money that's sort of been shifted slightly into being supporting funds for the USDA grant that USDA grant is still percolating through the process and will have its own milestones and such as well I was thinking more on a strategic viewpoint we're building out, you said you're building out the southern part of a CV fiber is that in some sort of project plan? that was hypothetical based on this proposal that we got from ValiNet which we haven't technically seen yet so they're saying this is something that they want to do we may get to a point where we have something a bit more concrete we're still a bit flying by the seat of our pants until we get a business plan and the feasibility study and the survey that David was sort of on this news button I should add that to the next agenda too so what you're asking for is the next step that we're looking at to venture into the annual report we did have some of this the annual report that came out in October he probably never seen it I don't know I can send that back out did you get a were you on the distribution list of board members of the grant application that we sent out? good question you should have been so I will send that annual report that was the statutorily required report that we have to provide to all of the member municipalities about what it is that we're doing that did have that kind of big picture of what we are planning on doing so it's too simple or a tactical plan yeah we're still sort of trying to figure out exactly how we're going to attack this thing that's probably what the feasibility study is going to generate that's probably what we're hiring out somebody tell us somebody tell you Jeremy anything you want to add? to focus the minds otherwise there's 30 folks sitting around 34 folks sitting around the room you will get 37 ideas the reason I asked I was involved in a project just like this during what I do for a living building out fiber in this case it was to the curb and not to a house so I'm somewhat familiar with what you guys are going through and the tasks involved so if you need any help with that business development I'm going to get your email John and Marshfield anything that you want to add any round table stuff not at this time thank you Jeremy my past but I'd like to say something of course are we surprised it's about the funding so right now we're going for grants getting up people to make donations we're bootstrapping at the beginning the whole idea of that VEDA legislation is to help organizations like us get off the ground it's not going to be available to us two times or three times and no other such things are going to be available to us two or three times second time or third time we're going to have to sell fund at some point once we have three years of financial records and revenue coming in we can go to the bottom market we can go to the banks and they will take care of us we'll have to pay the price it won't be free, it won't be free money anymore but we'll be able to do it we just also keep that in mind this is just getting us off the ground do you think that if we follow this path and are successful in getting a VEDA loan build up from the VEDA loan let's pick a number a million and a half, two million dollars from VEDA would the build out from that and the timing from that be the basis on which we can grow or is there a time period when we build out with the VEDA money and then nothing happens in other words see what I'm saying is there needs to be that sort of intermediate we only have the track record right after we finish the VEDA bill I imagine that we do a VEDA loan and an NBRC follow-on grant to keep us rolling to get to that three-year point where we can go to the banks that may be the formula but at some point we're going to have to start a borrowing money to do this and we're not going to get grants the feasibility side the EC Fiber model is we do go out and do some marketing and identify those people that will write checks for a hundred thousand dollars to participate in but yeah when will that discussion happen do we envision doing that and we start that's really hard we already had the discussion and we didn't come up with any of those folks but which I guess that's not what it is it comes more concrete so how is the take out take rate going in Craftsbury we have tremendous interest and we've had all kinds of obstacles satisfying it because of problems with both the state of Vermont and the contractor used us and whether there's a lot of communits waiting for fiber that are full of ice and then there's some it's complicated but there's some workers who refuse to do things we're asking them to do they refuse to do things so we're like working there's some systems things that still have to get resolved so we have some customers hooked up but not a lot of them and we have all these people saying me me me the interest is there so there's another I mean expectation and delivery everything's going to take twice as long as we think at least okay I'm not going to do around the table because I'm not hearing anybody screaming bye bye


Hello and welcome to this presentation of the STM32 Chromart Accelerator. It covers the features of this adaptive real-time accelerator block, which is widely used for graphic computing in the microcontroller. The Chromart Accelerator offers true hardware acceleration for graphical operations. The Chromart Accelerator is built around a 2D DMA engine for fast data copy with specific functions to support pixel format conversion as well as blending operations between two planes. It also provides specific modes for managing anti-aliased fonts. The Chromart Accelerator will offload the CPU for most of the graphical operations with a 1 pixel per cycle throughput, integrated pixel format conversion, and blending. The Chromart Accelerator is fully integrated in graphical stacks, making its software integration transparent to the user. Note that this Chromart Accelerator is only available for STM32L496 for A6 devices. The Chromart Accelerator has four operating modes. Register to memory for rectangle filling operations, memory to memory for 2D memory copy operations, memory to memory with pixel format conversion for bitmap drawing with format conversion, and memory to memory with pixel format conversion and blending for bitmap or text drawing with transparency. The user can independently program all the parameters for the source and the destination. The address of the layer, including its size and position, the color format, and the way transparency is managed. Register to memory mode is used to fill a part or whole destination image with a specific color. The color value is set in a register of the output PFC. Memory to memory mode is used to copy a part or whole source image into a part or whole destination image without changing the color format. Memory to memory mode with pixel format conversion is used to do the same type of copy as memory to memory mode, but with a pixel format conversion. It can copy any input format to any output format. For example, it can copy an ARGB-565 image into an ARGB-888 image without having to use the CPU. Memory to memory mode with pixel format conversion and blending is used to blend a part or whole source image with a part or whole destination image with a different pixel format. This is widely used to draw bitmap icons having transparency or fonts. For each foreground and background layer, the format can be programmed independently. Direct mode fetches the RGB or ARGB content directly from the memory. Indirect mode uses an intermediate color lookup table to determine the color to be used during the copy or blending operation. All the input color modes are transformed internally into ARGB-8888 format to perform the blending operation. Specific modes can be used to efficiently manage texts and fonts. Only the transparency value is stored in memory for rendering anti-aliased fonts. The color is added during the pixel format conversion process and can be programmed by the user. These modes are very efficient for storing high quality bitmap fonts. The output pixel format converter generates the color for the destination independently from the source. There is no indirect mode in output as this would imply having to calculate a color lookup table or CLUT. Nevertheless, memory to memory operations without pixel format conversion or PFC can copy data independently of their formats. The fully hardware blender blends a foreground image and a background image with transparency. This can be used to draw bitmap images of any shape with a perfect rendering. One pixel is generated per cycle making this complex operation much more efficient than if it was done by the CPU. The resulting pixel can be coded independently from the source thanks to the output pixel format converter. The output configuration defines the working area for the chromart operation. The address and the line offset parameters are used to select which sub area of the output is concerned. The background and foreground layers have their own configuration for address, line offset, and color format. This defines which area of the foreground and background layers are targeted by the chromart operations. The chromart accelerator has six interrupt sources to signal configuration errors. CLUT transfer complete. CLUT access error. Watermark reach during a transfer. Transfer complete and transfer error. No DMA trigger is used as the chromart accelerator embeds its own DMA. The chromart accelerator is active in run, sleep, low power run, and low power sleep modes. In stop zero, stop one, or stop two modes, the chromart accelerator is not available, but the contents of its registers are kept. In standby or shutdown modes, the chromart accelerator is powered down and must be re-initialized when returning to a higher power state afterwards. The chromart accelerator is widely used in any graphical application to compute the frame buffer without any CPU load and with a very efficient throughput. It can compose the whole scene with transparency and facilitate the management of animations. Text rendering is also accelerated, making it easy and efficient to manage anti-aliased fonts. You can refer to the trainings related to the RCC and interrupts for additional information.


Hi, I'm Viviana Lopez. Welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us today. We're talking to Stephen Henderson, who is joining us from Indiana. Stephen's father created the Red Barn Summer Theatre, where Stephen is an artistic director and designer. Stephen is also an independent filmmaker. Stephen, thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. What exactly is the Red Barn Theatre? Red Barn Theatre is a professional, non-equity summer stock theater in Indiana. It's a non-profit and we are in our 48th summer season Frankfurt, Indiana. And what inspired your father to create the Red Barn Theatre? He was the high school theater and drama teacher and being at the school for nine years or nine months, excuse me, out of the year and then having to be at the school for three months to have the theater, the summer theater there, meant that he was at the school all year long and so he decided to try and find a place where he could get away from the school and get out in the country, get away from the parking lots and asphalt and find a place that had a setting that was more conducive to summer theater. So the operation moved from the high school stage to the barn, 1972. What's your background in theater? Well, I was four years old when it started in 1968. I guess that dates me, but I was born and raised in it. I played all of the children's roles and I helped with building scenery and hanging lights and basically was born and raised in the theater. And then when I went to college, I studied theater and then Indiana University asked me to teach theater and so I've kind of been doing theater my entire life. And can you describe your process for selecting your actors? We go to Chicago. In fact, I leave this Friday. We go to the Illinois Theater Association auditions and we see about 300 people who are from all over the country and they're trying to get summer employment in the theater. They get 90 seconds to do an acting piece, do a music piece and get off the stage. It's what they call a cattle call. But it is an opportunity for them to be in front of about 30 producers and it's an opportunity for producers to see about 300 people. So once a year I go to Chicago and suffer and get out of the warm weather and into the cold and look at actors and then we try to set up deals after after that and hopefully pull a company together of about 12 to 14 people. So what's the process to select a show? A lot of reading, a lot of reading scripts and the difficulty is in trying to get four shows that work together in the sense that the same company can do all four shows but that are different enough that they're of interest to the audience. You don't want to go to a pitch and dinner and find it's all green beans. So that's one of the hardest processes of the summer is to try and put together four shows that will have diversity and are doable by the same cast because we use a resident company. That means a lot of reading and you have to figure that if each year and we've been doing this for 47 years you try to pick the four best shows that you can find you start eliminating shows. The pool of shows that you can pick from gets smaller and smaller and you just have to hope that the stream of new shows coming from authors and playwrights are sort of filling the void. You're eliminating the best of everything. We read a lot of scripts and say no way would that ever work at our theater. You read some that you say well I like that show but it's a little too much for our audience and so it's really a tremendous amount of work to try and find four shows and that's just a lot of thinking a lot of reading and a lot of hoping. So can you give us a walkthrough of how it is for say a summer in the red barn? Absolutely. The chosen company comes together and that evening we cast the first show and that evening we go into a read-through and rehearsal. 13 days from that day we will be opening the first show so the next day we have rehearsal all day long. Those who are not in the first show are in the scene shop immediately building scenery, gathering costumes, working on lighting, gathering props and within 13 days from coming together with strangers, people that you've never worked with before, people that you've never met, the first show opens. The next day we cast the second show of the season and while we're doing the first show at night and matinees on Sunday we are rehearsing the second show and pre-building the scenery for the second show and gathering the costumes and the props for the second show. That show opens and the next day you cast the third show, pre-build, rehearse while performing the second show and you are essentially going all day all night nothing but theater from the first day you hit the ground until you lock the door at the end of the summer and the final show is always a musical and musicals add dance steps, they add music, they add singing, a lot more costume changes, a lot more moving scenery so the summer begins at a run and just seems to go harder and harder faster and faster until the musicals open and at that point with no new show to rehearse you get a little bit of a break all you have to do is come in and do that show at night and maintain the grounds and so forth. So the push for me is once we've decided on four shows is getting to the day that the musical opens and then I have three weeks, the musical runs for three weeks, I have three weeks to coast a little bit, try to catch your breath, you lock the doors shut down the theater it's over and you hope that you get to do it again next summer. And how has the red barn grown over the years? Well it started out as just a barn and it was built in 1908 and we took it over it had cattle feeding facilities in it, it had grain bins in it, it was a barn full of hay, we took out all the hay, we took apart the hay loft, barns make very good theaters because it takes a tremendous amount of strength to hold the weight of the hay in the haymow. Well we took the hay out and we hung a tremendous amount of weight in lighting equipment and barns tend to have huge expanses inside of them that allow for movement of tractors and animals and so forth which gives you the kind of span that you need to have an audience that doesn't have to look at a bunch of posts. Then we added each year something new to the facility, we added a lobby and then restrooms and a box office and a rehearsal space and a dressing room and costume storage and costume construction and scene shop and so we continue to add as much as we can each summer with the budget that we have and the facility over 47 years has become pretty well equipped to do what it is that we need to do. So how has it grown? Little by little and steadily and it has gone from just a barn and you're trying to get made up in a little shed to a facility that has everything you need to produce theater. And how did you get into filmmaking? Well I got my undergraduate degree at Indiana University and I wanted to get a master's in motion picture and I saw that there was a program that was coming to Sarasota, Florida which was part of Florida State University's program it was their graduate school of motion picture television and recording arts I have found that theater is temporary and film is permanent and so I wanted to study filmmaking and see what that aspect of creation held for me. So I applied for the founding class and was accepted and went to film school here in Sarasota and have been a filmmaker ever since. So how has the red barn interest your career in film? Well theater is it's an interesting art form in that it's temporary you have to be there to see it and never when I go to the movie theater do I see as much laughter as you have in the live theater never do I see the emotion coming from the audience at a movie theater that I see in the live theater. So there's something special about live theater it is more magical in my opinion than film but when the run is over you tear it down and it's never to be seen again. With film what you're trying to create is the product and it is intended to be around forever to allow you to watch it whenever wherever you want. So I found that I was creating all these wonderful productions and essentially throwing them in the trash when I was done and so I was looking for an outlet where I could create something that would be permanent and I could see it again in the future. Having done both I think theater is really more satisfying but if somebody wasn't there you're basically telling them how much you enjoyed that production whereas with film you can say watch and see for yourself. So it's basically the same thing if you think about it film is nothing more than photographing live theater they kind of go hand in hand. What's the most fulfilling thing that you've gotten out of the red barn? Well it's long hours and we work 77 days straight without a day off and we work from about 8 30 in the morning until about 11 11 30 at night and then some evenings when you have changeover you're working till 2 3 in the morning it is very very difficult. So what's the payoff? Do you get rich from doing live theater? Not in today's world. The payoff for me is when I hear the audience as a whole laughing. When I look across the audience and I see ladies pulling the handkerchiefs out of their purse and they're crying. When somebody breaks through a door and the whole audience is startled at the same time and they scream you're taking them on a roller coaster ride and it's the effect that you have on them that is the payoff. I suppose if I was a roller coaster designer it would be the screams and the laughter and the fun so I guess we're not unique in that respect but it is the effect that we have on people that is the payoff for me. And can you tell us what the future holds for the red barn? Well in this bowl of fruit I have a crystal ball. With the arts today not being supported as well as they have been in the past you really never know the future of a non-profit organization like this. If the audience supports us we get to do theater for another year. If they don't support us no more theater. You cannot survive on ticket sales alone so it takes contributions from people in the public who value the arts to keep an operation sustained. We're non-profit but we're professional we do pay the actors because everybody has bills everybody has to eat everybody has to live but we can't pay them a ton of money so we hope that the show will go on through the generosity of people who are contributing to the arts that's pretty much the way it is around the country and with arts budgets shrinking there are less and less operations like ours continuing to do theater. It's sad but it's true we are one of three theaters in Indiana that is still doing theater in the summer in this nature. Some of the larger theaters like the Indiana Repertory Theater they get millions of dollars of support from the public the smaller theaters suffer and the only way that we can survive is if the audience continues to support us. If they don't support us then they have one less venue where they can go to laugh to cry to be startled to think and the reason that we strive to create the best productions we can is because you're only as good as the last production that you did if you can do your best then hopefully they will support you and you can continue for another season we've managed to do it for 47 years now we are on target for our 48th season will there be 49 or 50 I have no idea and unfortunately there is no crystal ball in that bowl of fruit so I'm an artist so I have optimism I'm hopeful and we'll see well thank you Stephen thank you for joining us today on the show