So good evening, everyone. My name is Angela Mills and I work for the town manager's office. This is a meeting of the town of Amherst public art commission. And at this time, I would like to recognize the chair, Terry Holt, take it away, Terry. All right, thank you, Angela. Okay, welcome. This is Amherst public art is our October meeting 2023. Today is October, October 5 2023. I'm going to read my thing. In light of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, then Governor Baker issued an emergency order on March 12 2020, allowing public bodies greater flexibility and utilizing technology in the conduct of meetings under the open meeting law. I'm going to chapter 20 of the access 2021 this meeting will be conducted via remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so by clicking the zoom link. This recording gets uploaded to the town's YouTube channel promptly after the meeting. No in-person attendance by members of the public's permitted, but every effort is made to ensure that the public and adequately access proceedings in real time via technological means. And in the event they are unable to do so, or regardless, we will post this on the town's YouTube channel shortly after the meeting. Okay, so roll call we've got Robert is here, Deris here, Thomas here and James is here, Jim, sorry, and I am here and Lori should be along. So she said she would be here and then probably have to get out at 730 so give her a couple more minutes to get online here. Hi everyone's good to see your faces. There but I got the agenda. No, actually, I don't have it. Oh, you do look in your email and look for Angela Mills she's she sent one to you it's probably in your. Okay, I'll find it. Sam Bach or something. I've been having such trouble with my email. Now whenever I can find it I just search for Angela Mills and it's always right there. I don't believe what's happening in mind is some of it goes to my cell phone sometimes it doesn't go to my computer where I need it. Oh dear, Lori welcome. This Lori. Here we are. Hi Lori welcome. Hi. I never I never got that email. Okay, I share my desktop so we can take a look at the agenda and the minutes together. I'm aware you've got to get out at 730 so we'll try to get as much as we can get done while you're here. Thank you for coming with us. I'm going to share my screen and see how this works. Okay, can you see my screen. Okay, all right, our agenda call to order we did roll call we did inviting public comment there is no one in the waiting room so we're going to right ahead. Our first order of business is to approve this September minutes did you all get a copy of the minutes. Yes. Okay, if you took a look at them I've got them up here in case anybody wants to look it over. I did not get to look at it so I'm going to just kind of breeze through here. I made two corrections based on things that people sent me their minor. Okay, everybody treasures report, you have 18428 is the March balance. That's not right is it should be it was 4,000. Okay, there should be a four at the beginning of that number was the problem with it. I'm not sure the report amount is wrong. What is the correct amount so I can change it. 4,18428. 4,18428. Yeah, everything's the same just out of four at the beginning of the, oh, that's the four off. I've been thinking of a tax return. Right. And see anything else we see here. Everything else looks good to me. Anybody else have any changes. Anybody like to make a motion to approve these minutes with the change that Jim is about to incorporate to make the treasures report reflect 4184.28 in the account. So moved. Thank you Tom have a second here. All in favor please say aye. Great motion passes we are now approved. Proved minutes for September and moving on. Chair report. Let's see I've got it written up here. Okay. I have no word about the come. Come out who's going to do the work on the poetic dialogue statue I still haven't heard from him. I'm going to try, I might go to his place of business and see if I can get his attention so I'll let you know how that goes. I'm going to go back to the committee. Dominique has sought legal counsel provided by the mass cultural councils look over the contract. She's asked for a couple of changes I met with Paul today in a meeting to go over those changes and we're happy to accommodate them. There's one change that Paul is going to check him with the town's lawyer to make sure it's okay. And then we'll have the changes go back over to Dominique and make sure it's all good and then we'll hopefully be moving forward. I will let you know when that is finalized so that we can set a date for a celebration of some kind. It is a collaborative process to work on this contract. Go ahead Robert. I'm wondering, do you know, did the payment timing. Did that get adjusted based on what the controller said that we could we could make progress payments. We can make progress payments. It's good to find out there still needs to be an invoice so there will be an invoice for that progress so we said we could pay $400 for upon completion of 50% of the project. And then the rest upon installment, we would need an invoices for both. So, yeah, I found it would be fine. Dominique is having taking some issue with the, the language of the contract using the words. So, I think the problem she was having mostly was that that requirement to have an invoice. She didn't realize that this was being that she does she thinks she's being treated like a contractor instead of an artist. And I, I talked to Paul about and he said it doesn't really matter what we call it if we call it an award a prize. So regardless you we have to have an invoice of some kind to pay that is the apparatus of town hall. It's that is the way it is we don't we can't change that so we need an invoice to pay. So I'm going to be talking to Dominique about that and see if we can just get that all figured out so let's call it something else she said seems to she just a light word invoice quite on a rarity. Well, regardless we need an invoice. Any other questions? Because it seems like we're getting hung up with with language and perhaps one way to accommodate that is, if we have, if we have a signed agreement, and the agreement specifies the, the payment arrangement in other words if if the final agreement is that $400 is paid upon 50% completion. I mean, I guess, I guess she would still have to somehow document that 50% completion I was thinking because in I've worked in performing arts organizations and oftentimes the contract is basically the invoice so if the if the contract spells out the payment terms. I don't know if it's used in lieu of a formal invoice but you know I don't know if, if you want to talk to Paul about what what proof do they need and maybe it is the invoice I don't know it just I did talk to Paul about this and he did say it is as simple as a piece of paper that has her name on it, you know her address, her tax ID number because that does have to be in the invoice. Yeah, then just the amount and then we just submit that so so yeah. I was hoping the same like make it a little bit easier by just making this be a contract. Yeah, he also said it didn't matter what it was called. The problem is that she doesn't like the word invoice. So why don't we just call it something else exactly the same thing that says in an invoice without the word invoice and then everybody's happy. Maybe just documentation of, you know, percentage completion or something like that. I think, I think we can regardless I'll have it. I'll talk with her and see if we can get that all figured out. So I'll get back to you about that. This one seems such an easy solution to me. Oh, by the way, do you have a share report. I'm reading it right now. Can you please send it to me. Sure. Thank you. It's extremely helpful. Great. As far as you're making it public. I'm awaiting edits edits in this meeting so that we can send off that email. I looked over the email that I sent you all a copy of and I think I want to leave out that end part about a possibility of a future project because it's keeping us from sending out this email saying that we're really sorry that this happened and I think I think we could say something at the end of it like we would like to know if you'd be interested in future projects with us kind of thing but I don't want to be very specific about the town hall thing because I feel like it's kind of delaying my notifications that this is discontinued and so I want to get that part. Communicated as soon as we can so we can move on. So what do we think about that. I just want to say that I noticed that making it public the call is still on our website. It is. I need to get that down and the other call as well. So when we, you know, decide what we're doing. Yes, I think that should come down. Oh, they both need to come down right away. I think that's fine to take that off. Yeah. To not be promising anything specific. Yeah. Okay. What do you want the rest of you think. Yeah, I agree with that. Dara, what do you think about that? Oh, can't hear you. I think you've got your speaker off there. Sorry, that's fine. Okay, great. Thank you. Okay. So then I sent, I sent it to you. I'm going to go ahead and first on this to Jim. He has it. Oh, sorry. There. Okay. Send this. So I'm looking at over real quick. Let's see, what did I call that? I called it making public something town. Here we go. Letter to applicants. Okay, here we go. Okay. So anyway, I'm going to take what we've worked on and omit the part about the possibility of this town, town hall thing, because we really, it's too sketchy. So I'm going to do that. And then I'm going to send that out this week. If that's okay with you. Yeah, I agree. Great. Cause I want to just kind of wash our hands of this and move on to the next project. Robert. Sorry. The last version that I saw and it commented on. We're, we're removing the section about offering any sort of payment. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to actually find. I sent it to you a couple of days ago, I think. And now I'm trying to remember when I sent it. I'm sorry. I must have, I must have. I get, I get and send so much email that. I don't know where I put it. I remember the first round with the revisions, but I don't remember seeing the follow up, but I. It's possible. I sent it on Friday, September 29th. And I sent it to the three people I was kind of working with this on. So I'm going to send it to the rest of you. And I'm going to leave out. In the, in the meantime paragraph right here. So. So you, so do you want me to read it to you? Is that, is that helpful? Okay. I'm ready to let you know that our 2022. Making a public grant initiative from the New England foundation for the arts has been canceled. The Amherst public art commission is grateful for your answering the call for art for this initiative back in late May or early June. And for the work you put into your proposal. The town of Amherst has experienced a number of employee losses that were key to this project. Among those, the town planner who acted as liaison with us and NEPA to apply for the initial grant. And help develop the project. Although the town tried to continue supporting this initiative, the loss of staffing made it impossible for APAC to meet our deadlines. Our town manager, Paul Wauquaman and advocated on our behalf with NEPA to continue the grant. But the decision was finally made last week. I'll have to change that to end Amherst participation in this project. This loss stings a lot on behalf of all of us on the commission. We apologize. We will apply for the same grant when we are eligible to do so. And when the town has staff capacity to fully. Yeah, to fully support our efforts going forward. And then I'm going to leave out this next paragraph. And then I'm going to say my name is Terry Holt. I'm the acting chair of Amherst public art commission as of March. I think that's correct. March 2023. I'll check the notes. If you have questions or concerns, please reach out to me via email. Or leave me a note at town hall to my attention. So that is the entirety of the letter that I'm going to send. Is this okay? Any changes you'd like me to incorporate in here? Good. Okay. All right. Great. Thank you very much. As far as the block party. Tom, Mikey, Jim and I hosted a table. We had so many art. We had so many pens and markers. And paper and stencils. And every child at that block party came by our table. And they drew great. It was great. And we got to have some conversations with their parents. And some of the grownups who were walking by, we had a, we asked for feedback about what, what the public thinks. You know, Amherst public art should be focusing on. In our, in our next couple of weeks, we're going to be talking about, you know, Amherst public art should be focusing on in our, in our next couple of years.   And so it was kind of an impromptu survey that I thought would be, would be helpful for us to figure out where we want to go from here. I do think we still could put forth a more formal. Poll, although I'm curious where we would put it. I think we could probably try the Facebook page, but I'm not sure what kind of response we would get, but that kind of in person feedback, I think is really, really powerful. So I'm excited to go through it. A lot of people want to see murals, murals are very big right now in public art, just pretty exciting. And I'm a fan of murals too. So I think we should do that too. So anyways, we had a really good time. Thank you for, for showing up guys. I appreciate your, your, your help on that. And then cultural council, a deadline to apply for a Amherst cultural council grant is October 17th, which is right around the corner. And I know we haven't had enough time talking about our strategic plan and the plans we want to do for 2024. But I did want to kind of just put that out there that, that deadline does kind of hover. And if we want to do something for 2024, we're, we might want to think about a project that we might want to put some, some energy toward for this year so that we can go ahead and fill out a grant application. And I did want to kind of propose that whole transformer box utility box art project that we've done in the past. Our town manager really liked it and supported it in the past. So I think it would be a key thing to ask for, for grant money for so that we can get some artists in to beautify the town of Amherst. So that's what I came up with, but I want to hear from you all as well. So was that November 17th? Nope, that's October 17th. October. Yep. It's coming up, Robert. How lengthy is the application process? The, the grant. Application is an online form. They've made it a lot easier in the last couple of years to apply for grants. I have not looked it over. I have not looked over Amherst, but we can do that. It would not. I actually have it kind of called up here in case you wanted to take a look at it. Yeah, I'd be curious to see it. And do you know, is there a. Is there a dollar? Is there a maximum amount? There is. Let's see. I haven't gotten a chance to look it over. But, but there is a. An information session that you can look at our slide deck PDFs that you can take a look at. All of these are. Is this, is this our local one? I think this is the. Is that the mass cultural council? It is a lot of LCCs are just using this exact same language. So that it's not very, it's not different. It's all MCC based. So. Would you be able to, would you be able to send us the link to this? Or have you already. I can do it right now. If you want to check your emails. Oh, actually I can put it in the. I can put it in the. Yeah. Let's see if I can get this done here. You do have that, right? We have. I think we have a chat, do we? Oh, we don't. Okay. I don't think I have the ability to do a chat on this. I guess, I guess you're right. That's a shame. Oh, that's because it probably made it open meeting law. Strange. Okay. Well. That's okay. Anyways, it's a, it's very easy to find. It's just Amherst cultural council. And then it brings you right to here. Okay. One thought I had, and I, I'd have to read this to find out if this is something that they would fund, but. You know, the strategic planning process. It's, it's been hard for us to, to kind of get. Get a start on that. And I'm wondering if we were to get some. Funding, whatever, whatever would be available to perhaps engage. Someone with experience, either a consultant, someone a facilitator, you know, someone who might help us get that ball rolling so that we could build some momentum. Because I think it's going to be tough. To carve out the time or really prioritize it. And I, I still do think it's, it's really important for us to undertake it. In terms of helping us plan for the future. I think that's a great idea, Robert, to ask for funds to help pay for. A consultant to help us with our strategic planning. That sounds like a really great idea. Yeah, Lori, what do you think about that? I mean, if that's within the parameters of what they would fund. Yeah, I think that would be great. I also wanted to bring up at some point. I think that's a great idea. I think that's a great idea. I think that's a great idea. I think that's a good time is the idea. You know, following up on this idea of. Of collaborating with. You know, the public art commission and the Amherst cultural council collaborating and outreach that we can do to Matt Holloway or Julianne, which is a really powerful way to work with them. I think that's a good idea. How it was going with our bolt would contract. And kind of wanting a like a review when I told her that we're still kind of waiting to get our art in there. And I wanted to make sure that we are still in good standing with the ACC. And they said that we are, which is a really nice thing to hear because we're new at this. We're all new to this. So. It's good to hear that worse. We're in good standing with them. So yeah, consultant would fall under the the possibilities for grants. I really don't know, Robert, and that's a good thing to look up. So was that deadline for mass or Amherst culture? It's for everybody. It's for Massachusetts and it's for the local and for the state. It's all one thing. The money all comes in the same place. Well, so we can look at what was awarded last year. I think in some way it has to benefit your local community, obviously. So I think we'll have to take a look at that. Robert, do you want to look into that and get back to us? October 17th is we won't be able to meet. Sure, I can take a look and see. But in terms of communicating what I find out is that something I can just share in an email if I just am stating factual findings or if you hold that. If you can't discuss anything. So you could say you could say I'd like to put on the agenda for the next meeting the following state what you're doing maybe and then don't discuss it pro or con. If you want to push the envelope a little bit, but I think that's okay, but I'm not going to say so right now without looking at it. Well, I think the issue though would be if we're going to meet the deadline, that's only 12 days from now. So I don't think we'd be meeting again before then. Derek, did you want to say something? Yeah, I think if the main problem is that we can't find a time to meet for the talking about mission statements and plans for the future, a consultant's not going to help us get a time to meet. And it's a shame to spend money on a consultant when we have already given up money for an artist when your idea, Terry, to go ahead and put in something that has to do with something that's already worked out, which is taking care of those utility boxes to keep working on that and do more of those that makes a lot more sense to do in 10 days. Okay, then have somebody do the research to find out if asking for a consultant. Okay, something it to me, it doesn't. I mean, maybe in the future, but that's not art. That's not an artist to do something. And valid point, Derek, thank you. It's a really good idea for us to put put something about real art. Right? Okay, thank you so much for your yeah, thank you for your viewpoint. Yeah, like Tom agrees to. All right, let's put a pin in the consult consultant because we do have some funds available to us also in our own our own finances, we can possibly use toward that. But to what Dara is saying, I think Dara might be right in how how we want to get money and what we want to spend it on. Yeah, I agree. I think that's a good point. Yeah, we can certainly figure out the planning process in another way. So okay. So let's let's put that that pin in there because I would like to return to it about about about hiring a consultant and using the money that we have in our in our own treasury to pay for that. But as for October 17th deadline, do you want me to pursue the possibility of doing a transformer box project? And I think I can find information in our files from past projects we've done and also talk to past chairs about how they did that and what they did. Do you want me to pursue that before we could meet again before October 17th, but it's really hard for us to get those, you know, those times together to meet to talk. I think if you can look at an original document about the previous work on the utility boxes, you should have the wording that you need already. And I've I've filled out those applications. And they're not that hard. Right, good. Okay.  And you have to put your art on the actual piece of paper so that you can see it? Or how does that? How do they do that, Dara, since you were you would be asking for a general fund to support designs that you don't have yet. So you can just describe the utility box based on whatever you feel it's not it's not that you don't need to go into detail about it's not a call for a project. It's a proposal for this group to make a call for a project to continue with the project of the utility boxes that's already started. Yeah, that we can just we can figure out how to how to run the call right now. We just need their proposal to ask for the money. I think you can just go make a good description in a sentence or two. Okay. The enhancement of the walking on sidewalks and stopping at stop lights to look at the utility boxes. Right. Yeah, you know, I don't think you need to worry about the details that like you think. Okay. All right. So I'm going to look into that and see what we've done in the past and see if I can find some language. And I'd like to get something in before October 17. So if we need to meet before that so that you can see what I what I've come up with, we can I can meet we can try to meet so we can get a quorum together. I can send out a doodle about dates. I have some time before October 17 to meet. I don't know if anybody else does, but I'll send you a doodle and we'll see if we can get together. Okay. That's on good. Yeah. And I wanted to say up. I was looking at the information on the website about the grants and it says that an LLC may approve grants for a broad range of projects and programs such as operating support, ticket subsidies, field trips, artist residencies, public art, fellowships, community events and programs, site specific projects and other activities based on local priorities. Each LCC. So we need to find our own determines its own local eligibility requirements based on a community engagement process and encourages granting no less than a minimum of 250 to each applicant. So just to give you an idea in the future, I like the idea of making this proposal for the utility boxes. And then in the future, we can think about other things we might want to do next year. I think that's a great idea. I would like to have I would like to make a list of things we could work on and in years forward after we do our strategic planning. So but right now, I think getting a 2024 grant cycle going to request funds for a transformer box, which we've already had in the past, I think is a is a good way to it's a good project to start with. Yes. All right. I will work on that and I'll send you a doodle to see if we can get together before the 17th. Okay. All right. Yeah, I may be able to help you because I was on the commission when we did the utility box project. Perfect. Great, Jim. You're my buddy. That's great. And also that word continue for an application is a really good idea. Okay. Continuing a project. Okay. Yeah, because that me that reminds me we've already approved it. Okay. Great. I will use that that language. All right. Great. Thank you so much. So it's all I have on my cherryport. So we'll move on on our agenda here. Review and approve email. We did that. Do we want to talk about APAC publicity? Did you all get a chance to see the logo that we came up that I came up with that was? I did not see that. Do you have a I only saw it on your own email to us one time about something? Well, I printed it out huge and I brought it with us to the block party to have something to kind of say who we are. Obviously, it doesn't doesn't have to be the, you know, the the one we use, but everyone who saw it seemed to like it. Is there have we anything to pick from?  Anything you show I need a copy of for the minutes. It's fine. Please. So the email and the picture you're about to send. Yep. I can send it to you via email. Whatever way you here we are. Oh, oh, yes, the picture. Yeah. There we are at our table and this is a homage to the artist who made the beautiful illustrate the the stained glass window in town hall on the second second floor. The second floor was stained glass window that is historic. It's actually was created 20 years ago. I don't have his name in front of me. I'm so sorry. I should the gentleman who created that beautiful art in that window, the stained glass window, it's in this same kind of it's in a it's an homage to it. So the original art has 20 20 has well, 21 moons in the art. If you're if you haven't gone to town hall to see what I'm talking about, it's a it's a it's a beautiful piece of art. And it is a piece of public art that was funded 20 years ago that we paid for in its entirety. And it is still there. So this is just kind of an homage to it doesn't have to be what we use. But I thought it was kind of eye catching. Who designed it? My wife. She's an artist. She's a graphic designer. And I told her what I wanted. I wanted something to do with the with that, with that window. Because it's a significant historically and artistically and it's it's about public art. And so she's like, oh, and she came up with this and I liked it a lot. So we'll, are we going to pay her for her work? No, no, we're not. I mean, she did not do this with the assumption that she was going to if we'd had a public call for it and asked her people to present designs, we'd probably be paying them. Yeah. Well, this and we can do that. I mean, it is obviously I just I wanted to kind of get something get something down to show you what a logo could look like and we can all I like it. I don't like the the background of it too. Yeah, cool. They say her but if you're going to pay your wife, it's going to be a conflict of interest problem. Yeah, we're not going to worry about that, Jim, because she's not asking for money. She did it out of the goodness of her heart. I pay her and, you know, cookies. We're good. Anyways, that's that's the publicity talk we're going to have. That's it. I want to say that we do still need to send edits to the town of Amherst for the website. So, Laura, you mentioned that the calls for Art need to come down. That's true. If anybody has something that they notice on the website that needs to be changed or fixed, can you send it to me so I can send a list to Angela to get that done? Yeah, I'll do that too. I noticed that there were there are some deadlinks. There are. And there's also some public art listed. I just haven't had time. The tour Amherst art destination, some of the art's not there anymore. It isn't, yeah. There's also a great, so Mikey actually sent me an email. Did she send it to you as well? I'm not sure. It was about a piece in the local, the independent, the indie, something, the Amherst indie. Is that what it's called? I'm still new here. That was about Amherst public art and it actually listed and showed some public art that I didn't even know about. So, I still feel like it would be really valid to catalog public art in this town so that we all know what's been done in the past because I still don't have a complete listing. And that's something I think would be really valuable. All right. All right. Moving on. Other business not recently anticipated, prior to 48 hours before the meeting. I did send you an email today that I received from Angela about a potential public art project for Want of a Nail. It's right here. I'm going to make it a little bit bigger so we can all see it. This is a project that an artist, a North Amherst artist, is proposing and asking for funds from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. And it is to install a sculpture at the not quite built yet North Amherst public library. Incorporating horseshoes, which are, she found a bunch of horseshoes on the grounds that the building is going to be house or worth going to be erected. And she asked a sculptor to come up with a design and the sculptor came up with this horse head right here, which is cool. So this is her grant application that she sent in, Catherine Striker. And I sent it to you in a PDF. If you couldn't read it, I can, I'm not sure how else to send it to you, but I don't know if you received it. Who received it? Tom's got it. I did, I got it. I did not. Okay, I know, I know there's, it's hard to open PDFs sometimes. But if you want to read about it, I read, I think it's pretty cool. I talked to Paul a little bit about it today. He got it as well. He thinks it's a pretty neat project. And I said, you know, I'll talk to the commissioners and see if we, if this is a project we would like to support in our town. And so it's something that we can, we can talk about. I just got it today so I haven't been able to really think about it very much, but I wanted to put it out so that you all saw it. So we can talk about it. Okay. Can you send that to me again, because I didn't come through for some reason? Sure. Thanks. On first, on first read through, I was very favorably impressed. I think it's nice. Yeah, it's got history. It's got, it's got a lot of graphic interest. It's the sculptures. I do think that the, this initial design, I'm a little bit worried about the very pointy ears. I think it's beautiful, but I of course have a little concern about how high up that's going to be and how spiky those ears are going to be. But I think it's a really great idea. So it might be something that we may want to support going forward, but that's something we will talk about in the future. So I will send you, I will send that PDF again and let me see if I send it. I think if you google the artist's name, you'll see there's a couple of other articles about it already, about it being in progress, and you can read more about the newspapers. Okay. So Google her name, and I don't have a link for it or anything right now, because I was just curious and looking up stuff. Okay. And the the the poem for one of a nail has a lot of different attributions, not just the one that she stated, but I don't care about that. Right. Okay. Not really, but yeah, I think that we need more time to think about it. Oh, definitely. Picture all of it and everything. And this person has been very professional about putting together the piece that they did. Right. And obviously, they've already gotten money for it. Right. Okay. Well, right. She's got a long list of supporters at the end of her proposal. I know. I know. Well, I didn't get to read it. I did not get to read it. I'm looking forward to that. You can see a kind of long list of people. If you, I printed it out when I finally could open it. Oh, great. Yeah, it was saying that she does not think there's going to be a problem with fundraising that she will be able to fundraise some of the fundraisers herself, she says. Right. And then she's got the Mass Cultural Council, the American Ferriers Association, the District One North Amherst, Jones Library, Town of Amherst, Wright Builders and Museum of Industrial Heritage. So she's got a list of supporters. She's so far as what it says. Right. The town is already giving her money. And Wright Brother, Wright Builders is, I don't know how much they're giving her, but we would need to know how much each of these entities is giving her before we commit. Oh, yeah, of course. You said the town is already giving them, giving her money. I didn't. She lists it as supporters. Supporters. I don't know if that means financial, but. Well, it typically usually should. That's what it implies. And you're right that it could be vague, but it's usually when you make a proposal like this and you say you already have support. There it is on your screen. Yep. So I would just, I think it is. I'm pretty curious about it. And I like the background of it and stuff. Okay. Robert. Well, to Dara's point, she mentioned that the artist mentions that the project was given an Amherst Cultural Council Award back in January of this year. So I guess I have a process question, so it's not clear to me exactly what she's asking of this commission. She's actually not asking this commission. Right. So I guess I'm wondering what our role is in this and what our, you know, are we are we approving any request that a resident has to create some kind of public art? And if we're doing that, do we have well defined criteria so that anyone submitting something can feel a degree of comfort that there's an objective set of criteria that their projects being evaluated against. So I, again, it kind of goes back to process and planning. And I feel like there's a certain lack of clarity around that. Tom, did you want to talk about this at all? Yeah. My feeling is that we should pass on, I mean, we can, we can, you know, learn more about it and discuss it. But I wouldn't plan for this commission to do anything for exactly the reason that Robert was pointing to, which is we've still got some work to do to get our, you know, our our own charter together and included with that would be the criteria. So I think the saving grace here is it sounds like she doesn't need us. It would be nice in a way to have, you know, have our name listed there as being aware and vaguely approving. I say vague because it would be without money maybe. But I think, I think we just, we have to get on with the work of defining ourselves and our processes. Well, what did she, how did we get the proposal? So this, Angela sent me this today. Uh-huh. Yesterday. How did it come to her? Well, Catherine sent this to public art attention, Thomas Warger. Okay. So, um, yeah, okay. I know where that came from. So they are appealing to us, you know, through Tom. Yeah. Is there, is there a specific amount of money asked for? What she's saying in this is I have strong interest for many individuals in financially contributing towards the cost. And I believe that I can raise all the necessary funds, which really sounds to me like that she does not have money, that she has support that's probably verbal. So it does not have a site yet. There's not, there isn't a location, there isn't a place to put this yet. So the town of Amherst might say, hey, that sounds really cool. But Paul said to me today, we don't know where it will go. They don't have permission to obviously put this on a site at all. So that, that's part of the process obviously of, of public art. So we, because we are public art, that would be part of our job would be to help the town, you know, use the site and, and have a project, have a system, which we don't have in place yet to Tom, to what Tom had to say. So I really love this idea. I do think that I would love to see this kind of thing come to us after we've got that all delineated and figured out. By the way, I think I know how she got my name on there, and that is when I put out the announcements about the, the the town hall gallery exhibit, I had to give my email. Oh, okay. So that's, that's how it's floating out there. Ah, okay, got it. Well, hey, it's good to get this kind of stuff. So it's just sort of an FYI, I think, from Angela. This is, this proposal is. Well, because Angela sent it to us, so that we, that we saw it. So now that we've gotten it, we just, we're going to talk about it. We'll talk about it today, we'll talk about it next month. But there isn't any action item that I need to, you know, check off right now. Okay. She has sent this to public art, so we now have it. We can now read it on our own and discuss it at the November meeting and we'll have more to talk about. So if anybody wants to do any fact finding in the meantime, you're welcome to, to bring that to the next conversation that we'll have in November and we'll, we can contact her at that point if we decide to do so and help decide to go forward if we all vote to do so and we'll figure it out. But this is just the initial stage and this is something that, you know, it should be the norm that people send us proposals and, hey, we'd like to do this in public art and then we say, sure, we've got an apparatus for that, which we will come up with. So yeah, let's take a look at it in your time, you know, in your own time. Interleisure, you have a month and then we'll talk about it in November. Does that sound good? Yep. I like it. Great. Okay. So I think my agenda, we're at the end of my agenda, I do believe. Does anybody have any other business that we did not anticipate before this meeting that they'd like to discuss? I have one piece, if no one else does, I would invite everyone on the commission to consider the possibility of joining me as a co-chair. I could use a little help as in leadership position. So if anybody feels called to be by my side and help me co-chair this commission, I let me know and we will discuss it at the next meeting. All right, so think about it. Come back to me next month and we'll talk about it. I'll be sending you a doodle about a possible meeting before October 17th, so respond to that when you get it and I'll also send one for the November meeting, which I'm hoping is going to take place on Monday at 6.30 if it works out date-wise, but I'll send you those two doodles. Okay, so your homework this month is just to take a look at this and see what we think and then we'll talk about it next month. Okay. Okay. All right. I did not ask for a treasury report, Robert. I don't know if there's anything we need to discuss or you know nothing has changed probably. Yeah, I don't have any news to report. That $5,000 hasn't just mysteriously like shown up on our account, right, from the town of Amherst. Um, I haven't been in touch with with Holly. I can I can ask her. I had she hasn't she hasn't contacted me to say that there was any additional funding that's in the account, but I can ask her. Wondering if we had received that from Nefa so we can put it in there for for hopeful future uses so we can actually help support our artists in town. If you could find out if that is you know going to be placed in our account so that we can. So just to clarify, is that something that you're discussed with Paul that the money would go into our account or? I mean that my assumption was that this was this was given to the town of Amherst public art commission for use in this project and so it should be going to us for our uses so that we can actually help artists in our town. Um, but if you would ask ask her real quick and just get back to me and then I can follow up with Paul if there's any clarification that's that needs to happen. All right. All right, well this was less than an hour. Yay, Lori. Thank you so much for coming and it's really good to see you all and I will talk to you in email and then we will see each other in November. Do I have a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn. Gonna get a second. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All right. Motion passes. Thank you so much. Have a lovely week and I'll see you soon. Thank you. Hey, bye everyone. Bye, Jim. Bye.


What's up everybody once again it's Brandon Shawn and this is a quick little video I gotta do and it's about a serious topic, gang culture. And of course when I mean gang culture I'm talking about this gang culture that all these artists are trying to create when they say gang gang gang I'm this gang I'm that gang I'm that gang because they want to give their fan base a name. This used to not be a thing back in the day but now it is especially because of the internet and people can make up these hashtags and doing it as a hashtag makes them think that just because I did it now my fan base is all bought in but that is not the case. I know Rihanna has the navy, Beyonce has the beehive and Barb's for Nicki Minaj and J. Cole. I don't know what J. Cole has. If somebody knows what J. Cole has put that in the comment section like that would be interesting. The first thing that people gotta realize is one you do not need to have a name for your fan base for your fan base to be a very strong fan base. There just needs to be an understood culture and a pure joy and love for whoever the artist is. If you really want your fan base to create a relation and culture then you have to think about that community building a community you can check out my video on lifestyle branding where I talk about Starbucks, weed and Travis Scott to really dig in on how to create a community because here's the truth so many people have these hashtag gang hashtag this gang that gang and whatever other these weird names people got going on that the fans they're not a part of any of them they don't care about your gang and it's not necessarily because they don't care about you it's just the fact that how does a gang work? If I love five different artists which means I got five different gangs that I'm a part of am I really a part of a gang at all because you know that's kind of against the point right? But that's really what's happening from a consumer fan base perspective they're not thinking about it consciously a lot of times but what you're seeing is less interest you might see people use it here and there but they don't really feel any buy-in where they really feel like they're repping for you know whatever you got going on they love you as an artist but this label isn't something that they identify with strongly I mean that's something to really think about because how would you feel about somebody they told you they were a blood and a Crip and a GD Democrat Republican liberal Taylor Swift fan? You would probably look at that person like they were crazy like bruh like pick one so again focus less on the name itself the name the name is not going to do the job for you focus on creating the community and the deeper connection and that community once again it's not necessarily about you it's about creating this relationship between everybody else who happens to follow you you're just an ambassador for that community for a perfect example there's a guy that I've been watching random YouTube videos of his lately and he always says swim team what up swim team so the people who are following him he's calling them the swim team and he says that because you know he has those waves in his hair and everything and everybody might not really relate to that in the audience everybody who's just watching his videos cuz you know you have an array of people if you had a lot of followers but at the end of the day there's probably a lot of people out there who do connect with the fact that they that he has waves they probably have waves too and you know because of that they identify with the term swim team and might use it a lot more willingly than a lot of these other fan bases that might not necessarily even be about the artist influencer or whoever because at the end of the day if you think about a term like swim team that's applying to people who have waves in their hair they don't have to even like the guy to feel like they're a representative or a part of that community a lot of people are afraid to create something that exists without their involvement but a lot of times if you can do that you're creating a lot more power for yourself from a brand perspective and a lot more opportunity because that brand will be able to do things that your brand can't do without it losing value just something to think about would love to know you guys thoughts as always if you like this video go ahead like but if you like your miles well sharing if you're not subscribed you know what to do hit that subscribe


I just think it was such a five star, five star slate. I feel like I'm at an art gallery looking at a painting and seeing what it represents and going, oh, that's beautiful, harrowing, sad, whatever. But it doesn't feel like an experience of reading a book to me. I cannot believe my luck. Honestly, I can't believe it. Oh, fancy seeing you here. Let's turn the lighting down a bit. It's too late for that. Right, in this video, we're gonna be doing a 24 hour readathon. That light is still bright. It's very late guys. How I felt filming this. We're doing a 24 hour readathon because might be a bit behind on my reading goal. But yeah. I just feel a little bit behind, just a little bit. So I am running a 24 hour readathon with my patrons today. It's currently half 11. It starts at midnight. I've never done one of these before my patrons. I'm really excited. And I just feel like this is a good opportunity to get ahead of, why not get ahead? I mean, I'm 17 books behind schedule. I don't know if 150 books is gonna quite happen. I'd like to try and catch up on it a bit. We're not gonna read 17 books in 24 hours. But at least I'd like to catch up on it a bit. So I thought I would vlog it. I think I lasted a 24 hour readathon like a year ago. I'm just gonna say, right, we're gonna read. Sometimes I watch some people's 24 hour readathons and they're like, we're gonna read a lot of books and we're gonna bake a cake and we're gonna go to the beach and I'm like, girl. Oh, let's be realistic. We're just reading, like we're reading, reading. I'm doing quite a lot of sprints for my patrons. We're gonna sprint till 2 a.m. my time and then I'm gonna go sleep probably till about eight and then we'll get up again. So let me show you my TBR. My TBR is made up of books basically from previous TBR Cluedo months that I hadn't quite got to yet. First we have got The Deep by Rivers Solomon. I'm really excited to get to this. This has been on my TBR for a long time now. It's about how pregnant African slave women were thrown overboard by slave owners and now they exist as like mermaids. I think these water dwelling descendants, one of the mermaids I think holds the trauma of all generations. I've heard it's pretty hard hitting. This is gonna be my first Rivers Solomon and I really wanna read Sorreland by Rivers Solomon. Like I got so many books by this author that I wanna read. So I think I'm gonna start with this tonight. Then the longest novel that I have on my TBR is Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers. This was picked by one of my patrons in a grand TBR Cluedo. It's just over 200 pages, so it's not that long. And I read Courtney Summers really, really quick. I always got hooked into Courtney Summers. I'll link, I just did a vlog where Courtney Summers tried to qualify as one of my favorite authors and was not successful just. But if this gets a five star, Courtney Summers will qualify. So like she's getting another chance. She's getting another chance. This is I think her debut and it's about this perfect girl and when that cover starts fracturing. I don't really know. I just love Courtney Summers. That's all I need to know. She's incredible. She's a beautiful person. Then we also have the novella Killjoy by Holly Jackson which is a prequel to the Good Girls Guide to Murder series. I have the audiobook and the ebook for this. So we're like, listen, we're set up guys. We're pretty set up well for this readathon. That is about Pip going to a murder mystery party instead of like actually solving a serious crime. And I just love this series. I know the series is done now forever. So I'm just excited to get a little bit extra of Pip and of the characters in the series. And then that might be all we read, right? That's pretty good standing. But I thought I would just throw in, if we do finish all of that, what I'm gonna pick up is Delicates by Brenna Thumbna. This is the sequel to the graphic novel Sheets. So it's a graphic novel. So though it's, you know, it's fairly long. It's a graphic novel. I think this would be really good for the end of the readathon. I'm gonna be doing a live till midnight tomorrow night. And if you guys don't know me, I go out of sleep by 11 every night. This is, this is tough for me out. I'm like awake till two. I can't do it. You can. You can do it. You can, you can. So I think this will be good tomorrow night when I'm sleepy. I actually just purchased this. It arrived a couple of days ago because I started this series this year. And I would like to just finish it and take it off and not, you know, finish all the series. So, yeah, if we can, we'll read this. Otherwise, our TBR is these two and Killjoy, which I think is a pretty good blog of TBR. If I can read four books in this 24 hour readathon, I will be really happy. And the dogs will be really happy too. So I'm gonna go hop on our live and we will start reading. We'll see how much I get read tonight. ["Like Secrets Read"] Like secrets read. I'm tired. It is 8.50, 8.49. I've been awake for about an hour. I woke up at 7.45. I woke up at quarter past six. Considering I went to bed at half two, I was like, no. And so we're not gonna have that. Okay.  So I woke up at 7.45, which was before my alarm. I set an alarm for half eight. So I've been like waking up and then I sat down. I read, I got to page like 50-ish of the Deep Fast Night. I read another 30 pages to get me halfway. I am enjoying this. I am enjoying this. Perhaps not quite as much as I thought I would. So basically this is following the descendants of black slaves who were thrown over the ships. Yetu, the one we're following, the protagonist is the historian for the group. And what that means is she carries all the memories of the trauma, the legacy of trauma that all of them experienced. She carries it all. The rest of them don't remember it. And then every couple of years, every year, I don't know how often, she like gives it back to them to remember, but only very briefly. And she's convinced this time she's very weak. She's convinced that if they give it back to her, she will die. So she flees and leaves them in this state. So yeah, that's kind of the story. We also have a chapter following, I think the perspective of the first historian. So where this kind of practice began. And it's told in like, we, we did this, we did that, which was interesting. Objectively, my feeling with this book is that I'm like experiencing a work of art rather than a book. Objectively, this is a work of art in what it's saying, in the analogy that it's representing. It's such a sad, beautiful, haunting book in what it's using, the story of the mermaids and the historians and the legacy of trauma to represent. But I don't feel like, in order to give a book five stars, I need to feel like absorbed into it. And I don't, I feel like I'm looking at this from a distance. I feel like I'm at an art gallery looking at a painting and seeing what it represents and going, oh, that's beautiful, harrowing, sad, whatever. But it doesn't feel like an experience of reading a book to me, which is like fair enough for like different books of different experiences. And I'm already really glad that I'm finally getting to this. I don't know, I am enjoying it. I'm listening to audiobooks. So I'm gonna pop out for a quick walk.  And I'm gonna listen to the audiobook while I'm on my walk. I'm only gonna do like a half hour walk because time is of the essence. Yeah, I'll do the walk and then I'll come back and put my makeup on for the day and get ready. So I reckon by then I will probably finish the deep and I can check in with you. But I definitely feel like I need to, like I've got the window open, the breeze is amazing. I feel like I need to get out in the fresh air to fully wake up. Doki-doki, I just finished the deep. Where's my book? I just finished the deep and I enjoyed it. I'm gonna give it a 3.5, verging closer to a four. I'm gonna round it up on Goodreads. I just wish it had been a bit longer. We had a Yeti's perspective. And then we also had the perspective. Let me just take my, I don't wanna leave my most treasured bookmark in there, my seals. Yeah, we had Yeti's perspective and then we had like perspectives of historians from the past in like two chapters. And I just didn't feel very connected to those two chapters. I understand why they're important and I'm just gonna be back a bit. I think they should have been there but I think the book should have been longer if we're gonna have that. But I think it's such an important book. It's a very intelligent book. Like I said, I do feel a bit detached from it. It's like I went to a gallery and saw like the most amazing piece of art I've ever seen with so much- I was angry. I was angry. With so much depth and meaning and importance to it but like that's not what I necessarily look for in a book. Do you know what I mean? But I think it's an important reading. I would still recommend a lot of people read it. You know, and what it says about lived trauma and about the burden of carrying the history and carrying on the history for people who do that. And I just think there's, and the community like putting that on them. There's so many different interesting aspects to this book. It's also queer, which I didn't know going into it. That's a part of it that I kind of wish right if that's gonna be there, we need more. I didn't really buy into it. I didn't feel like super attached to it. It was fine. I liked it, but again, I would have wanted more. So this was like 100, 150, 160 pages. I wish maybe it'd been like 250, I think, to kind of include all of the different aspects. I'm not talking a full length novel, 200 to 250, I think, even with 40 more pages, we could have got just a bit more depth that I would have wanted. But, whoa, that's violent. First book of the 24-oddathon finished. It is currently 11 o'clock. So I'm quickly at home brunch because I typically eat lunch at 11 and the next reading sprints start at 12. So I have some quick lunch and then I think I'm gonna start Killjoy. You can't really see it, but I didn't see because it automatically just takes you to the first chapter but there's like letters and cast of characters, which is very interesting. I think I'm gonna start this next because it'd be nice to finish another book, I think, and then we'll endeavor to read Cracked Up to Be, which I think will just be a little bit longer reading experience. I was gonna have for lunch, we have some turkey burgers, which were really nice, with some broccoli and potatoes, but I just don't feel like eating meat because sometimes I just get like that. I don't really like eating meat, especially at lunches. I'm not a big fan of meat at lunch, but I don't really have any other food that's like easy for me to make quickly other than I'm gonna have a jacket potato for lunch with beans and cheese, okay? It's a very British lunch. Don't need to judge me. Whoa, the height of cuisine. It's disgusting. I'm blocking you. Can I block somebody on this thing? A few moments later. Okay, my cats never bring any animals in. They don't really kill animals, but this boy, this naughty, naughty cat.  Yeah.   Now he wants me to put the tap on for him, don't you? Hey, he likes to give kisses.  Okay, buff it, that's so nice. Whoa, you're giving them so many kisses, but you're naughty. I shouldn't be kissing your head, to be honest. Gross cat. It's like I need to wash my mouth now. All right, here you go. Yeah, I'm gonna put it on. Yeah, I'm obsessed with the camera. It's talking your mouse germs all over me. All right, taps on for ya. Are we the best of friends? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, okay.  Great. So I haven't done much reading in these sprints that we're doing at the moment because this cat. Do you have a drink? Drink time? Hell yeah. Okay, let's actually go get some reading done. I just finished the second sprints with my patrons and I finished Killjoy. I read the whole of Killjoy in those sprints and I'm gonna get five stars. Now, is it the best thing I've ever read? No. No. It is 130 page novella, but it's so much fun. It's so much fun. I just think it was such a five star. Five stars for me. For what it was. It's such a fun little like Easter egg of a book, right? I don't think this is where you should start with a Good Girls Guide to Murder series. I would say read the first book at least and then read this. If you've read the series and loved it, honestly, read this book. The audiobook was on the script. I bought the ebook ages ago. I don't know how much it was, but I think I bought it really cheap. I would recommend getting the ebook because basically what happens is in this, Pip, before the events of Good Girls Guide to Murder, her and her friends host this murder mystery party. It's like basically a game. Like they've bought the game. It makes me wanna do it by the way. It makes me wanna like hold a murder mystery party. Only problem is I have no friends.  But it was like, brought this game. They all have to act as characters in the 1920s. There's like clues printed out. There's like a booklet printed out that they go through the game with. So they go through stages of the game and they get information about themselves and their character. And you see all of that written throughout. And I just thought it was such a fun thing.  The reason I love Good Girls Guide to Murder so much is the mixed media elements and like the fun that is throughout that book. Holly Jackson says, I'm gonna give you a concept. I'm gonna give you a moment. I'm gonna give you an experience. And that's what I appreciate, right? Do you think we'll just write books? Give me an experience. So yeah, that element of it just made it so much fun. It made me feel like I was playing the game. It made me feel so into it. I loved seeing Pip's origins as like her loving investigating stuff and her figuring out actually in this at the end that she figures out what she wants to do her EPQ on. And the ending is just really fun to read if you read a Good Girls Guide to Murder and know, you know, what happens and everything. It's just fun seeing like the origins of that. It's very interesting. There's also, I feel like this was written after Book Two or around the same time because it ties into the events of Book Two as well. So I think this would be fun, I think to read after you read Book One but before you read Book Two. That would be how I recommend picking it up. I just loved it. I had the best time reading it. Is it a five star, you know, best bookable time? No, but did I have a great time reading it? Yeah. I'm sad this series has ended, you know. It was a fun little goodbye for me to these characters because I don't think Holly Jackson will come back to it nor do I think she should with the ending that we had to the series. But this was just a fun little moment to be back with some of the characters. And it's made me so excited for Holly Jackson's next book. I just, I'm so nervous because I don't know if it's gonna have mixed media. It seems like a bit more of a traditional thriller storyline with like, you know, I think like five, six friends go to this deserted island, five survive or whatever. So I'm just gonna be intrigued as to how she carries that level of fun. But yeah, I loved the elements. Can I find a bit? The elements would like the clues that they'd get this booklet that took them through the game.  Okay, so there's like this one where they got shown what their alibi was. Then there were clues with like handwritten notes. It was just really, really fun.  I'm so glad that I have finally gone round to it. So it is now, we've just finished the live. It's 20 past three. So we've got, how many hours left this left? How many hours left? Like nine hours? Just under nine hours left of this. So it was a pretty good amount of time. I am starting to feel a bit tired. And I know I'm gonna be up till midnight after wake up at six tomorrow to edit the weekend's video. I need a drink. I was like, should I have a nap? But I don't think so. I think I'm gonna have another snack. That's gonna be my way of getting through this. And I'm gonna start cracked up to be. This is like, I feel like I'm in a really good position. I feel like I'm definitely gonna be able to finish this and maybe get to delicates this evening as well. This is Corley Summer's debut. It came out in 2008, which is kind of crazy. 2008. I'm just so excited to read another Corley Summer's. This is gonna be my fourth read. If you watched last weekend's video, you'll know. This is her next chance to be qualified as one of my favorite authors. If this gets five stars, she will get into the Hall of Fame. We're following this perfect girl. You know, the perfect girl at secondary school and things start to become not so perfect. It's only 220 pages. So I'll probably read to halfway and then check in with you. I always read Corley Summer's books really, really fast. So I'm feeling good about this. I feel like we're smashing this out. The only sad thing is, is that Goodreads like expected me to have finished another book, so I didn't get any more ahead on my Goodreads goals. We're still 16 books behind. So we're only gonna get to maybe like 14 books behind schedule. But at least we're making progress. And I feel like this is really good for me, like ticking books off that I've wanted to read for ages. It's great for my mental health. And it's also gifted to me by one of my patrons who is participating in the readathon, Melissa. So feel really good, picked by one of my patrons as well. I will read to chapter 11 and then I will check in with you. Oh, perfect. I want to read this right there. There she is. Cute. Resty red on her shoulder I was cleaning her shoe When it clicked on the trot over In the bright morning We brushed and we braided Dandy lines and two There's six o'clock. You can't see. Anytime I show it, six o'clock. I am halfway through cracked up to be. It did take me a little while. Like I've relaxed a bit. I'm not reading quite as fast. I've actually, I've had enough and I'm about to blow. That's like 110 pages in three hours with me like not 100% reading all the time. I watched some football with my dad. I had a slice of toast. And I'm really enjoying this actually. I'm really, really enjoying this. So we're following Parker who used to be perfect. She used to be the perfect girl, like on a roll, head of chair, most popular girl, basically. And then something happens and we find out she's like basically abandoned all that and tells everyone what she thinks of them is very blunt is on like probation. I don't know what American words are but like not doing any homework. She's like might not graduate. She's in a real sticky situation. She was drinking at school a lot and stuff. And it's becoming clear something happened at this party that has kind of spurred this change on. This was written in 2008, 2008. It doesn't feel like that. Oh my God, my phone. The Discord is just too popular. Yeah, this was written in 2008 and it doesn't feel like that. When you think of the stuff that was coming out in 2008, like the paranormal romance and like it feels so ahead of its time. It does feel like something that was perhaps released like five years ago but not something that was released 14 years ago, you know? Which I think is a real testament to Courtney Summers writing and I'm really enjoying seeing the roots of her stories and her girls, her protagonists from this book. There's an interesting foreword in this or introduction in this from Courtney Summers when this was reissued, talking about how it was really difficult to sell this book, like to get a publisher to buy it because she writes Unlikable Girls. And honestly, Parker's the blueprint. Courtney says it's been more than 10 years and Parker Fadley is still the backbone of all my characters who have followed. Without her, there'd be no Regina, Regina, no Eddie, no Sloan, no Romy and no Sadie or the girl after that or the girl after that. God, I'm thinking back to when I think, wow, this must have been so different to what was coming out at the time, like Unlikable Girls. Really, girls who like tell people what they think doesn't wanna be liked, doesn't want anyone's validation anymore and is like troubled. I don't think that that was necessarily being written in 2008 and Miss Courtney Summers broke the mold. Broke the mold. Now, perhaps it is more common, but I feel like Courtney Summers still does this so well of girls who are going through trauma and are in some cases hardened against the world and in some cases, I just read I'm the girl and I kind of like innocent and naive against a horrible world. But she's so great at writing girls like this and girls, like young girls who you don't have to agree with every decision that they make.  That go against your idea of morality or sanctity. I don't know, but Courtney Summers doesn't allow that.  And I love that. I love that. But I am getting pretty tired. So I feel like I need to shake it up a bit from reading and I'm feeling in a good position. Our last sprint start at nine. You can't see me, why am I talking? Last sprint starts at nine there for three hours. So obviously I wanna finish this. I do think I'm in a good position to finish, cracked up to be and read delicates. This is literally what I know what I need to read when I'm gonna be falling asleep later. So what I'm gonna do, my mom's making dinner. I'm gonna edit, I think until dinner and maybe a bit after edit tomorrow's video that's going up because I'm gonna have to wake up. After being up till midnight tonight, I'm gonna probably cut like six tomorrow morning to get tomorrow's video done before I have to go out at two and I take the thumbnail and everything I haven't done that. So it would make me feel probably a bit better if I edit some of the video. And I just feel like I've read a lot and I've read a lot of stories, right? It's like one thing, reading a 600 page book but I've read a lot of different stories and I feel like my brain just needs a break. I also think I'm gonna go try coffee for the first time. What? I've never had coffee. I used to make it a lot. I used to work in a cafe but I feel like my coffee making days have felt I don't remember how to make coffee. I used to know how to make everything kind of coffee. I don't remember anything. But I'm gonna try coffee first time. I need some energy, I need it. Now I'm gonna make it very milky and very sweet. And we'll see how we do. But I need to pick me up because I am falling asleep. I really am. Like I'm very tired. My head's hurting. So I'm hoping if I go have a coffee for the first time in my life, genuinely, this is a big moment and then I'm gonna edit for a bit and then I'll probably come back to reading this after dinner, finish it near the start of the sprints and then spend the rest of the sprints slowly making my way through this. Sounds like a pretty good evening to me. So let's go make coffee for the first time, everyone. I'm a little bit scared.  The moment of truth. Right, here we are. Coffee, my lovely fairy-leaf mug. I feel like this is a mistake. I lost our home today. I feel like I have not made it milky enough. Everyone's gonna be looking at me going, girl, that's milky. Okay, I put three sugars in.  Okay. Oh my God, how does anyone drink that? No. It's a mistake. I feel like I have to though, is if it's gonna give me energy, I need it. Hang on, I'm gonna go downstairs and put two more sugars in. I mean, it's still vile, but I'm gonna drink it. I'm just gonna drink it. Oh my God. So I need the energy and let's edit for like 45 minutes to an hour. Oh my God.  Bottoms up. I literally just finished my book. How to react. Oh my God, I'm like a mess. Give me a moment, everyone. Finished, cracked up to be. I think I'm gonna give it five stars, which means 40 summits is one of my favorite authors. She's only gone and done it. Yeah, I'm gonna give it five stars. It wasn't five stars until like, maybe the last 80 pages, that last sprint we just did, it was just a 45 minute sprint. I think I wrote like the last 80 pages and like, yeah. I even had to talk about it. I'm so tired. I think I'm gonna, it's like half 10, I think almost 25 past 10. I'm gonna cuddle up now in this last half an hour and a half and I'm gonna read delicates.  Like I'll give you my thoughts in the morning. Cracked up to be. Right. I love Parker.  I love her. Okay, let's just get this out of the way. If you watched my last vlog, you know Courtney Summers has joined the Hall of Fame. Join the Hall of Fame. That's one of my favorite authors. No matter who you are, where you come from, if you've got a dream, there's no one out there that can stop you from achieving it. It just feels right. Also, if we're counting Killjoy, Holly Jackson has also joined the ranks as if, as if this video has been more successful in favorite author qualifiers than the dedicated vlog I did for it. That's a bit diabolical if you ask me. So can we just like let them ascend into the top author ranks? Let's just take a moment. So I gave the synopsis. Parker has been doing something obviously awful. The way that what has happened to her is revealed and just the understanding for the depth of her feeling that you get is amazing. I don't even know how to speak about this book without really spoiling the journey that you go on. That's the whole point, the journey that you go on with her feelings and understanding why she's feeling the way she's feeling and feeling that with her and being in that emotion with her. I think this is one of the best depictions I've seen of someone going through what Parker's going through. I don't want to explicitly say stuff because I can't remember what's a spoiler. It's late. I've got no sleep. The one thing that I love so much about Corny Summers is she is not afraid to go there. She gets into the ugly. She gets into the gritty. She gets into the places that no one wants to go. She like addresses topics in a way that's like a little bit taboo. It's a little bit like people are afraid to show that side of stuff, but she does it and she does it so well. And also the fact that this is from 2008 and it's her debut book, yeah. That's a contributing factor because I just can't believe that this is a book that she wrote when she was like 22. I think she said in 2008 and still feels fresh and like, you know, like a new perspective on stuff and like saying stuff that people don't want to say and portraying stuff in a way people don't want to portray stuff. I don't know. Corny Summers is one of my favorite authors ever. We can officially say it. I can't believe this vlog is more successful at me qualifying favorite authors than the whole vlog I did for it. That's a negative sleigh. It is half 10. We've got 37 minutes left on these sprints. I'm going to get into bed now. I've been sprinting at the desk this evening because I knew I'd get sleepy, but I'm going to get into bed and I'm going to read Delicate's The Graphic Novel which is the sequel to Sheets, but I reckon I should be able to get this read in the next hour and a half. I'm sleepy. My brain needs pictures. I will probably check in with you in the morning. I'm not going to lie because I want to speak about a book. I want to speak about books eloquently because that's what I'm known for. When I get tired, I get even more thinking I'm funny when I'm not. Anyways, let's go read a graphic number. I'm so excited. We all recover it. So I finished Delicate's Last Night. I cannot believe my luck. Honestly, I can't believe it. That's three, five stars in the readathon. Excuse me? I loved this. So this is the sequel to Sheets, The Graphic Novel, where our main character, I kind of remember her name, Marjorie, she runs her family's laundromat and she meets a ghost called Wendell and it's them becoming friends. And they're still in this, but we also meet Eliza, who is on the cover, who is kind of socially awkward, struggles to make friends. She gets bullied by the people that Marjorie, Marjorie is kind of like an outcast too, but she's kind of fallen into this friendship with some people and they're bullying Eliza really badly. And this is a middle grade, right? This is a middle grade graphic novel series. The way that this covers some tough issues, like unaliving ideations. I'm trying to be much more careful with what words I say so YouTube doesn't get mad at me. But issues such as that, it tackles with this. I think that's so important for children and it has so many important lessons. I almost cried in it. I just really loved the journey where all the characters went on. Wendell, the ghost in this is much more of like comedic relief and I really liked him as that. I just loved it and I really enjoy the illustration style. It's very different to like other illustration styles that I've seen before. You know, it's about loneliness and sadness and compassion for other people and you know, caring for others other than yourself and looking out for others and friendship and sadness and hope and empathy. It's about all these things. I don't know, I just love this and I think so many kids in middle grade. So like in this one, they're the oldest year of middle grade. Middle school, sorry, sorry. I'm not American. I just think this would be so helpful to so many people. It was the perfect book to read last night and it's another series finished for me but I don't know if there's gonna be any more in the series. So for now I'm calling this a series finished because this came out I think in 2021. Grief is also tackled in this because Marjorie's mother has died. There's just so many like deep feelings that I think sometimes we can stray away from in kids media. This tackles it in such a subtle, caring way. So I loved it. So I am so happy with the four books I finished. I am so proud of her, I could cry. These three plus killjoy as well. I feel like I did such a good job if I do say so myself. No, it's made me really excited to make more content. I'm just feeling really good about everything at the moment and I had three, five stars. These plus killjobs, absolutely amazing. I've read about 800 pages like that is just unknown. Really, I'm already struggling with them but doing it with my patrons and just the live shows and just like the group vibe. I just loved it so, so much. So yeah, I hope you enjoyed this vlog is why I really enjoyed making this vlog. Let me know down below what you thought of any of the books I read in this readathon. And if you got to the end, comment the camera emoji because Eliza is big on photographing ghosts. She believes that she can photograph ghosts. So yeah, comment the camera emoji if you got to the end. Thank you guys so much for watching. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and I'll see you soon in another video. Bye.


Welcome traders to the Tick-Mail Chart here with me Patrick Munley. We draw your attention to a spoken opportunity on the 4-hour chart in the Stirling Dollar. We have a clearly defined wave pattern here. In a consolidation wave 4 phase at the moment and what I've been looking for now will be a breach of this sending trend line resistance and the projected daily range resistance at 134.43 as confirmation that the new wave 3 is underway which should take us up to target at least an equality objective at 36.32 with the potential to head up to that 138.139 level discussed in the daily analysis. So watch for that closing breach of 134.45 to set long positions targeting 136.138.139. As always traders, plan the trade, trade the plan the most importantly and manage the risk. Until next time, thanks very much.


Well same shirt different day just over here at some rest area Gotta say not all dump spots are created equal That's not anything nasty. It's just Extra water No staining sewage, but it's pretty gross Yeah yesterday with mostly driving I anticipate today might be a bit of driving too. I'm gonna get close to Atlanta Possibly stop by and see a couple people tomorrow. So let's just take it easy. Let's take it easy Also, I got to a great start today. I slept in past 10 o'clock Which for me? Couldn't tell you last time I did that Also a big shout out to Bob up him for the patreon Donation, thank you very much. I appreciate you and for everybody who doesn't know Bob sent me a message and said hey Can you ask badge if you can help me and I? Was like you're gonna have to ask a badge.  So I'm honored but from both of you. So thank you so much Discovery Center this I suppose is to Raise awareness for living conditions of other people around the world and there is a blower up here So I'm gonna turn this one off and turn this one on dirt floors, you know ten roofs. I mean, that's a real thing There's a lot of people living like that So interesting stop Is it you know worth 50 miles out of the way if you're on the freeway? You know if you haven't been to a third world country, I would say absolutely Or if you're curious about these types of organizations, this would be a good way to see what exactly your dollars do for them


And now we'll hear from Margaret Ratner, counselor, a criminal and civil rights attorney, and also a plaintiff in the case. As a criminal attorney, I don't think that there's anything worse than your opposition listening in on what your plans are, what you intend to do, and your conversations. It's really, it's a terrible thing. And it's treated by the United States courts as a terrible thing. This is not something that hasn't happened. Very occasionally in the US. And the result has very often been a dismissal of the indictment. I'll give you one example, and there are others who will give others. In the wounded case, there was an FBI agent who listened in at the door and reported. He also did a couple of other things like dealing with a witness. The judge in that case dismissed the indictment for gross misconduct. And gross misconduct is exactly what has happened here. And I don't understand how the CIA, I guess through the insanity of Pompeo, could think that they could do this. This is so outrageous that it's beyond my comprehension.


Thank you. So, yeah, disillusioned at age 50, turning a 10-year WordPress hobby into a career or as a woman who doesn't code. So, let's take a look at this a bit. It doesn't seem to be advancing. And let's try it now. I'll just operate it here. This is fine. I'll do it from right here. That works. I'm nothing if not adaptable. So, let me introduce you to myself. My name is Laura Byrne. You can find me pretty much everywhere online at New York or Laura, whether that's Twitter, WordPress.org, Slack, that is where you can find me. How did I find WordPress? I found WordPress in 2006. How many of you go back that far? All right, we're pioneers. So, I found WordPress because back then, like many of you, I had hobbies. I'm a big old nerd. If there's something fantasy or sci-fi, I'm there. Game of Thrones, Star Trek, Star Wars. You pick it. It has a horse. Some fighting, some castles. I am there. So, in the late 90s, in the early 2000s, how did you meet with other people who had the hobby you did? Well, you could be kind of limited in your local community or you went online and you found your people. Well, I went online and I found my people. In those early days, there wasn't social media. We were all engaging in websites that were built largely with things like Front Page and Dreamweaver. Anybody remember those? And then we had online forums that were easy boards or envision boards and those were clunky. Anybody remember those as well? Those Yahoo listservs and all that? Oh, yeah. So, I ended up taking, you know, part in those online communities and pursuing my passion there. So, one day, one of my friends said to me, hey, I read this book and I'd like to start a website discussion for it. Okay, great. I was like, this WordPress thing is like everywhere now. It looks so much easier than what we've been doing. She's like, yeah, do you think we could find somebody to help us build one of these things? I was like, yeah, let's ask around. We'll find someone. So, we had a blog and a discussion forum for what at the time was a brand new and little known book. Became quite a well-known book. Anybody ever heard of something called Twilight? My friend and I built the most viral Twilight website on the Internet. We thought maybe a hundred people would come by. No, it went from a hundred to a thousand to tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of viewers a day from around the world visiting this website. We learned all sorts of skill sets of, this was now beyond what two people could manage. We were managing a team of 20 volunteers from around the globe. We were learning things about SEO, how to get attract people. We learned social media from the ground up and how to incorporate that into our site and how to bring more of an audience in. Then these little books ended up with movies. All of a sudden I was in the strange position of talking to movie studios and executives and how to pitch our content to them and vice versa. So all of this was fantastic. This was a hobby. This was a side thing I did for fun. And out of that hobby I ended up with some nice freelancing writing gigs in the entertainment industry, which was again great, but it wasn't really what was paying my rent. It wasn't what was putting food on the table. It was allowing me to have a little extra income. So what was my main job? My main job was in the field of education. I graduated college in 1988 with a degree in English and an electric typewriter. Computers had actual floppy disks. I mean they flopped. Like literally, they flopped. Nobody went to college with a computer when I did or maybe they were a computer science major, but that wasn't a thing. So my first career was in education, in private education as a teacher and then as an admissions director. A couple years later down the road, I transitioned my career with an education again. I became the marketing and communications director for a large system of private schools. As I used to say, there were 114 of them and one of me. It was challenging. And by 2016, I had had enough of that challenge. I was in a system where I had to commute into work every day for almost an hour in traffic in the New York metropolitan area. It's not fun. Most of my job I could have done at home, but they were going to force me to come into an office every day. And ultimately, I was stuck, pretty much capped out. I couldn't go any farther than I was. So I thought, you know, I really want to work from home. I love WordPress. What can I do? I don't know PHP. I sure don't know, let no JavaScript, let alone deeply. And I know just enough HTML and CSS to be dangerous, which is to say, you don't want me doing the CSS and the HTML. So what is it that I can do? So what I ended up doing, and we'll get to my roadmap in a minute, but I ended up transitioning my career, first starting out doing some freelance social media ads for people and realizing quickly that wasn't my passion, that wasn't where I was going to go. But I eventually transitioned into working into a small, small agency where people wore many hats. I was a project manager. I was a support ticket agent. I was, you know, pick something today. I was updating the plugins. You know, I learned a lot, and I got my feet wet. And from there, I transitioned again. Currently, I am an account manager at Web Dev Studios, which is a WordPress agency that specializes in the enterprise space. We have clients such as the NBA, the Campbell's Food Company, and Cisco Meraki to name a few. So how did I get there? Conventional wisdom would say that at age 50, good luck finding a new job. Don't quit. Hack it out.  Stay there. Nobody wants to hire you. You're too old. Well, the fact of the matter is I'm not old. I'm experienced. I have life skills. I have life values and you need them. So I'm a pioneer. How did I learn tech? Well, I was really patient. I stood in line in Sears, because there was this game called Pong. Anybody ever play Pong? That was my first video game. We weren't hand holding a device. We were standing online at the department store waiting our turn and chatting so we could play a video game. You know, other things. I learned technology as quote unquote, the young person at work.   That's a skill. Because of my age, my bosses are baby boomers. I speak fluent baby boomer. I am Gen X. I understand Gen X. And my child is a millennial. I speak three generations fluently. I am what you need. I relate to all of them. Here's the other thing. As a woman who doesn't code, and somebody who built an incredibly viral website, I understand user and user perspective. I have great respect for designers and development developers. But with respect, you are not users. You don't always understand their point of view. You need people like me to translate user to you and translate you back to them so you can find what these people actually want. So how did I do it? I started thinking of all of my life lessons and all the things I could do and I really quickly realized I had a laundry list this big. I had to cut it down. What were the top skills I were really good at overarching skills, not little itty bitty things. And for me, I had to pick that lane. What am I good at? I know I'm a great teacher. And with being a great teacher, I'm also a great communicator. I'm also a heck of a salesperson. So take those skills and now try to distill them into catchy sound bites because if you're competing with the job, there are a lot of people with those skills. What are how are you going to demonstrate that your skills are more memorable than somebody else's? One of the ways I did it to prove that I was really good at sales, I was in private education. I said I am selling you the benefit of education in our schools that you could get for free in the American public school system. And I am convincing you to pay $10,000 a year for that schooling. If that's not sales, I don't know what is. And I was able to do it and double admissions in school by convincing people of benefit and why you had to get them through us. So those soundbite analogies help get your point across quickly and make you memorable. How else?  The other way I was able to kind of get my name out there is to constantly speak up and speak often. If there was a word camp in my area, I pitched it and I pitched a user talk. It's a talk that stands out because they have so many designer and developer talks and how many users show up at word camps and they're looking for a talk that I was giving. They were hungry for those talks and people started to recognize me. Same thing at my meetups. I was always there to say I want to talk from the user perspective and I got my name out there. It made people realize what I could bring to the table. So advice for companies and advice for those transitioning. Let me go to the, since I know I'm coming close on time, let me go to advice on the second column first. Where can you find a new job if you're somebody who doesn't code? I went to all the sponsors at word camps. I went to the flagship camps, figured out who sponsored and I started hitting up their careers pages to figure out who had a job. That's one way to do it. Another way you can find a job in the WordPress space, Michelle Frichette and that's her handle on Twitter. Every single Tuesday she posts a list of WordPress job offerings. Check it out every Tuesday. Post status is a great place to find things. Also Twitter and meetups ask around. You'll be surprised at how many people have some offerings. Also come by to Ali, she's sitting right there. Her talk is coming up today talking about how she has found a place in WordPress as somebody who doesn't code. And then advice to companies. Think about how you're representing yourself if you want more people like me. Take a look at your pages. Is there diversity on your website? And if there's not, tell me you're working on it. I'll be more encouraged to apply if I know yourself aware. If there's no salary posted, I'm not interested. Flat out I'm going somewhere else. I need to know I can feed myself and pay my rent. If you cannot put up a salary, not interested. And then just wrapping up really quickly. Take a look at your qualifications. Are you putting coding qualifications on a job that doesn't need coding? Can you teach somebody on the job? We're sponges. We can teach, we can absorb and we can transition. And then lastly, get people on your team to recruit for you. I have the job I have today because I saw somebody who is not in the HR department tweeting about we have openings. Join me. We had a Twitter conversation first and then I went to the HR department and have the job I have. So thank you for listening. It's a quick lightning talk and I'd be happy to catch up with you afterwards if you have questions.