And I know Eve was talking about common, so. So we don't actually have a quorum yet. So I don't know, Jason, if you want to just like put it on. Do not record yet. I mean, stop pause recording. Temporarily until we have a recording right now. Okay, go ahead. We're soon to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order suspending certain provisions over meaning what law this meeting of the. TAC is being conducted via remote participation. So. This meeting is officially. I started. We should start with the. This meeting is called to order and I don't think there are any public to comment. Unless it wants to comment, but. But I know we only have this short meeting, so. Sorry. Oh, you made it. You made a ton. So it looks like the, the, the main objective of this meeting is to review and discuss the TAC priorities projects, which are going to be. Displayed or prioritized by Jason in lieu of. Guilford. Well, so we have our list and then Guilford has his list. So I don't think Jason is going to necessarily share Guilford's list. I did notice one, one thing that happened. And Andy. Maybe able to speak to this, but in the preliminary, I don't know if I'm going to be able to speak to this. I don't know if I'm going to be able to speak to this. But in the preliminary goals with the town manager. It said that one of the things would be that like the list of. Sidewalk and road projects. You know, on the. Town's priority list would be published every year. And now those goals. They're not finalized yet. But. But I did see that language in there. So that would be. That would mean that. The town's priority list would be published every year about the priorities. And I sent around the document that we have. I mean, but as, and I, but I did note, right. As an advisory committee. I'm not sure what it means that we say like these are our priorities because we don't actually have any authority to say. The town must do these falling things. We're just advising them. So, but one thing I was wondering is just because we do have four members here and we wanted to. You know, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. If you have had a chance to review it and maybe just want to. You know, if we go around the virtual room and just want to take a few minutes each to comment. You know, about what we think about, are these the same priorities that you would still say are our priorities now, or if there's things you want to change. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Is that. Yeah, there was an agenda and then there was a notes from TAC spring 2022. Yeah, that was my list. Document. Oh. Yeah, I didn't go all the way down. Sorry. Now I see that. Yes. And then also Andy has his hand up. Yeah. Andy. Yeah, I just wanted to respond quickly on the two things about the one that's coming up next week. One is, as you noted, the manager goals are on the agenda. They have been revised. It is in the packet. I believe that the goal that you read is still within the list. The interest of the council. The counselors who brought that forward and it hasn't been discussed yet. And the other thing that I think is. There's a tremendous number of inquiries made all of the time. From constituents about my road. Needs terror needs work terribly. We need to do something on it when it's something going to be done. And counselors who are frustrated because they don't have any way to answer the question. at the meeting next Monday, and if you have any comments about it, either regarding desirability to do it, or concerns about the feasibility of having such a list, this is the time to get them in either by having somebody present a public comment or submitting a written comment on behalf of the committee. So that was one thing that I wanted to just comment on. The other thing is that at the end of the meeting, counselors have the opportunity to give committee and lay us on reports. And I gave a lay us on report about this year committee at the meeting last Monday. Specifically, I reported on the conversation that we had placed a prior meeting in which you were talking about feeling the need to have better clarity about how your expertise can be best used as a committee and the need to address that issue. I simply reported that when I had the opportunity during that section of the council meeting, but those reports are not discussed, but it was a way of giving your report as you asked me to do across to the council. So that was all. Thank you. Thank you for conveying that to the council. I mean, so right when the new council, when the current council took office in January 2022, like I know, right, we had prepared like a sort of summary about this is tack and these are what we've done and things. And, you know, the goal originally was that we were going to present it to TSO just to help people become more familiar with what tack is and what we do. And also, and I had also sent it to the council president to just share with the council and it ended up going really quickly. So that's where I think because there's also been discussions about updating the tax charge or if the tack is going to become a commission or like all these different things. And so, I mean, I feel like some members of the council might not still know that much about tack. So we appreciate that's great that you did the liaison report to update on that. So. Thanks. So. Well, how do you, how do, how do everybody think that we should just proceed and kind of discussing about our goals? Do we want to, I mean, I can pull them up on my screen and we can go over them together. Do people want to weigh in with individual comments? And just what happened to that spreadsheet we had? Well, that's not our spreadsheet. It's like Guilford spreadsheet. Yeah. But it included that there was a tack like. There was a tack tab. Yeah. That's true. It was our, that was our priorities at the time that we did it the couple of years ago. Sure. Exactly what we had thought about. Well, and Guilford also do some of those. Yeah. And Guilford also keeps the list of like every. I mean, I think about everybody who's requested any right improvements. I don't know, Jason. Do you see a list like that ever at DPW, but. No, I guess I'm sure about. Oh, it's a mystery list.  And right, they're not all created equal of course, but. But they come in through so many different venues, right? They can come in like by people can contact their counselors or people can contact the town manager or people can contact DPW or put it in C click fix. And, you know, these are sort of a comprehensive place where somebody's tracking, like that these were received. And what's going to happen to them. So. And all it also seemed Tracy is though. There were always some requests that didn't get on Guilford's list. Like there were certain places he would get the request from that counted as went on his official list, but other places where people send in requests and didn't get on his list. So. It didn't seem like it was always completely comprehensive. Right. So I guess when Guilford's back, you know, at the next meeting, we could also ask about that. But, um, But just why don't I, does it make sense for me to pull out? I just pulled it up on my screen. Yeah. So let me just share that then. So, um, okay. So you can see this. So this was a list that I had worked on. So we had met right before the new council came and we created like a couple paid summary of just like this is tack. And this is what we did. And then this was, um, a follow-up list that I created when I had a meeting with the town manager just to indicate, um, like what were our priorities. And, um, so. Based on our early discussions. So the main priority I had, and I still feel like this is a big priority. Um, it's the completion of the priority bike and pedestrian pedestrian network map. Um, right. We had our discussion where we did all the markups in early 2021 is now almost two years later. And we really need to get that done, um, at planning board meetings. It's come up about like what, you know, where is the bike and pet network. And, and I know I was at the district five meeting that was held last weekend and people were asking, well, you know, there's going to be development at Hickory Ridge, for example, is like that part of the network and things, right? So the longer we wait to have that map. You know, in an updated form in GIS and presented, like the more update it's going to get. Um, so. I'd still like to see if we can move that along. And then there were these two other items too. You know, these were more mine. Well, this first one in the crosswalk, the design guidelines where we had gone through those as attack. And, um, send our final guidelines to the town manager. So they were never officially adopted by the council, which I think would be helpful, but at the same time, the DPW is already using those when they do those crosswalk. Improvement projects and. They were used for the, a lot of the downtown improvements. So they're already happening. Um, and then there's this other one that hasn't got anywhere either, which is the restriction on on-street parking on Ontario roadways. Right. So, um, the DPW originally brought that to, you know, the police station meeting room. And the concerns were just about particularly like with the winter and things like if people are parking on these arterial roads. You know, it can create some challenges. And, um, at the time when we supported doing that. Um, so those, these two items both went to the town manager and they just haven't been advanced though. As I said, in practice, the crosswalk design guidelines are already being used. I mean, I don't know. It was suggested, Gilford suggested to me that I could go back to the town manager and ask about that again. Um, But I don't know what do you think about that? But I really, I mean, I really care the most about the GIS map, I think. Yes. But we also, there was a huge concerted effort about this crosswalk design thing. Right. You know, the fact that the, the council is de facto using it is something. That at least we could put it. They're already using it. So we should. Yeah. Just be. Well, I could ask. And I could also ask Amber, like I was on the TAC website recently. Like, she still has like the older drafts and stuff. I could just say, like Amber, can you just put these up? Yeah. You put these up on the website, you know, just show that they're being used. So. One thing to throw in about the crosswalk design. Okay. Planning just got a grant. You come up with some. New downtown design guidelines. Like for hard escape and traffic. Scape and benches and, you know, all that sort of stuff. I think they got, I think it was 75,000. So it's definitely something to keep highlighted. They, they know, they like what we've done so far as far as I understand it. With the, with the imprinted thermo class. Our crosswalks. Yeah. So we definitely want to keep that. On the forefront. And make sure that we have that. Yeah. So we definitely want to keep that. On the forefront and make sure it doesn't get overlooked or. Changed or whatever, or if it does get changed, but you guys like it too, I think. Yeah. So we definitely, we love the fact that we're, we've moved away from the granite brick and concrete. Crosswalks that. Aren't designed for anywhere with freezing temperatures. Sure. Eve has a question. Oh, go ahead. I just wanted to say that. I'd love you guys to remind yourselves about the document that TAC prepared about two or three years ago about. Overall. TAC recommendations for annual administration and budget in the town. And I can. Resend that link. Yeah. Thank you. Can you do that? That would be excellent. Yeah, I don't, I don't think I can put it.  That's the only thing about this stuff. But if you can email it to us, that'd be great. Yeah. Christine. You'll just have to forward it to Christine because I don't have. Yeah. I mean, so for me. It's nice to have a map. That's great. But the things that actually stopped people getting killed right now. The crosswalk design guidelines and things like that, right? I mean, that's, we need that hard coded.  That. That's going to, you know, really save lives. Keep people moving that sort of stuff. I think that's. Should be like, I mean, that's an easy, should be an easy win for us. We already, everybody's using it. It's sort of like a no, you know, no brainer, right? I mean, even our most colleges considering going to those. Thermoform crosswalks. I mean, we need to get that out there. We need to get that imprint. And like, this is the way the town is moving. Let's go forward. I mean, just, just, yeah, just looking at Kendrick Park. The stuff that has a thermoform is obvious. The stuff that doesn't everyone just blows right on through. So we don't really need much more than that. Just to prove where that sort of priority should lie. So. That's a good point. Marcus, thank you. I mean, I think one thing. The reason that I've been thinking about the map is just because it's coming up as I said at planning board meetings and other meetings in terms of like, oh, for sure. Yeah. I'm not. Oh yeah. I know. Future development and, you know, for example, like it came up with the questions about Olympia drive, like the new development there. And the developer wasn't interested in providing parking and said, well, everybody can bike and walk and take the bus. And they can also use, you know, his argument too is that they can also use UMass parking. And then the planning board members are like, well, how does this fit into the bike ped network? Are you going to do things to encourage biking and biking? Yeah. My point is we have notes around that, right? We have notes. No, absolutely. The fact is we don't have a standard for the town. No. We don't have a standard for the town for crosswalks. Right. Do that. Then everything else we can get into, you know, I think. Let's get the easy wins in there. Because getting that. I mean, we've been trying what I mean for. No, I know. We've been trying to find somebody, right? I mean, it shouldn't be hard either, but it's, that's more of a money thing. Right. Even before that too, I think I remember Eve trying to get the initial layer from the Pine Valley planning commission that took a few years first. Right. No, but I mean, that's more money dependent rather than just setting out, you know, having the councilors vote and say, yes, we're doing this. Right. That's the easy one. Yeah, for sure. Okay. And then, all right. So then, and I also just had, I just had on my list. I mean, it's not really a priority at this point. There is no funding, but just that we had done that. Those walking assessments of North Pleasant street near the UMass campus, you know, between Eastman lane where the roundabout is in Pine street. And just to keep that on the radar. Yeah. The previous, the previous TSO had made it a priority, but the reality, right, is that there's no funding for it. And I don't see it as being near the top of some of these lists. Yeah. To me that like specific call out though, is all part of the note below it. Right. But we talk about, you know, North Pleasant street. I think you've got here right next to pet Kendrick park. I just see it. You know, as that Eastman lane, I don't know that there's necessarily a need to specifically call it out because. You know, we prioritize that you need to sort out. Yeah. The specific streets. Okay, great. When they get North Pleasant between Eastman and Pine. There's all this stuff. It's the same as for sure. I mean, I would say that pedestrian access to gruff parks actually been done. Right. I mean, it is getting much further along. Yeah. I mean, maybe Jason, since we have Jason here and he's on top of all he's probably, he could tell us a little bit more too about. So, so like, for example, North Pleasant street next to Kendrick park. I think that's beyond our. Oh, great. Paving list next year. That one, I think all the design is approved. We're only going from McClellan. To triangle, triangle street slash North Pleasant. Yep. Yeah, triangle street, I guess. Yeah, that one's complicated. I always call it old North Pleasant street just to kind of this thing. It is confusing to people. Yeah. Yeah. So that one is funded that one's going forward. The designs approved where that one's going in our next paving. Our next paving did. And then North Pleasant street from Eastman to Pine has come up. More than usual in this past year, which is good. You know, it's, it's sort of been fallow for a few years. But it got some, it got brought up in a CDBG funding meeting, which is a good sign. I don't think it got any like high honors there, but it did get mentioned. So that's, you know, a sign that it's a project that's on a list any anyways. And then we've had a couple of minor developments. That is prompting us to kind of, we're actually going to do. I think we're going to have a, maybe a 100 foot section of this from. From like Pine Street to the first shared driveway. Because. Okay. There's, there's a spur of North Pleasant street up near Pine street. Yeah. It's got like three driveways off of it. Yeah. And it's a spur that's technically town right of way. Yeah. When we walked that, I had never really seen that before until we walked it. It's like the old, it's an old North Pleasant bit where they probably. Yeah. Yeah. It used to have like a common area or something. Right. Yeah. We're actually going to include that in our paving list to just turn those three, three driveways into three longer driveways, eliminate the portion of the old road. And install a portion of the proposed multi-use path. Nice. Nice. So it's, it's silly. Yeah. I mean, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know if it's just a couple hundred feet, but at least it's one little piece and anything's better than nothing. Yeah. And it takes care of our problem for us because it's a headache to try and patch that to plow that area to. We get complaints about the potholes over there and, and all sorts of tiny little issues that, you know, amount to a million cuts. And so we're, we're looking to take care of that piece. And then I also had. When I was in the last year. I met with the owner of this house. That house is a rental property. North of campus that is looking to develop an empty lot north of their existing rental unit. And they wanted to negotiate for some stormwater drainage stuff. So I met with them and said, that's where we really, we had designed a bus pulloff in that location. With this multi-use path and it would have required, it will require easements or, you know, make this work. We're going to move their existing driveway over to, is it Berkshire Terrace? I think it's Berkshire Terrace. I always screw up all the strutters, farm road lanes. But we're going to move the driveway over to the side street and then put the bus bus pull off and shelter and sidewalk right in front of their property. And they were they were great with it. They were like, yeah, we'll figure out if you we want to do an easement or a taking or whatever. And then we'll go from there. So that's tiny pieces of a much bigger project that they've gotten. You know, there's been some interest. There's been some forward motion at least. So back to but back to the North Pleasant Street at Kendrick, right? So with the product, the work plan for next year, does that include having the crosswalk like the raised crosswalk at McClellan? McClellan, yes. And then and then, you know, expanding right doing the angled parking and moving to the west, right? Oh, counter. Okay, great. Yep. Which side of is it both sides of McClellan that will get a crosswalk? Because currently there are sidewalks on both sides. Yes. Yes. It'll be it'll basically be a raised intersection. Oh, cool. The whole thing. Intersection with crosswalks on all three sides. Okay. And there was also originally designed about having another crosswalk North of McClellan. Is that still in the plans to that's included as additional traffic calming? Great. Yeah, that's not raised. I might be right. I think you're right. I don't think it was raised in the plans. We had talked about it being raised. Right. Digital cost. And now is there also because in the in the master plan for that, they also have there's also the plan about adding sidewalks on the Parkside. Yes, that's that's going to be well. Okay. That's included. There's sidewalk sidewalk goes right behind the telephone poles. Okay. Takes a fair amount of regrading because there's some steep parts. Yeah. Right. My co worker Paul managed to make it all. He's like up near up near triangle, right? There's like it's steep up there. That's where it starts to get a little. Yeah. Wow, that's going to be a huge product. So yeah, that's exciting.  Yeah, I had two questions. One on the two North Pleasant pieces. So I'll stick to the Kendrick Park piece for now. In the mean that this also sounds fantastic, Jason. In the meantime, two specific requests. I was just biking there a couple days ago.  Do not enter at a very minimum. I think there should be a sign there that says accept bicycles that could be put on there right away, preferably to have a stripe that would show the counterflow line. Could one of those be put in now? I don't think anybody's willing to sign off on that kind of liability without the full with the road available. Honestly, roads in really rough shape, our paint machine is away. So even accept even a sign that says accept bicycles. I think the sign opens the town up to a liability. Unfortunately. I mean, I had advocated their name on that. It's so frustrating because it's more dangerous, you know, if cars aren't expecting you. Right. Anyway, Eve, I had advocated for that to like using the model that's in Cambridge and Boston and parts of Europe and things where for sometimes with the counterflow on these neighborhood streets that there isn't actually it's not even a signed bike lane, like a marked bike lane is just considered to be like a low flow street and then the cyclists can go where they feel comfortable. But I mean, as Jason was saying, the DPW wasn't willing to do that. But yeah, but I had advocated for that. But part of the problem in Amherst is just that there's there's so few signs saying where bikes can and can't go that no one expects them and none of the bicyclists follow the rules because they assume that like they're either allowed to go where there it doesn't say, you know, like, like I think Amherst needs to move towards a future in which they're actually spelled out where your bikes are supposed to go and they go there and they don't go other places. And that would entail having signs like that. Yeah. But I guess what Jason was describing right is that in the project in the spring, they will add the counterflow bike lane and then they would have such signage. So everything will be included once the road wide enough, smooth, safe surface. Right now, I would honestly think it's kind of dangerous to ride a bike down either side of that street is not fun just because of the condition of the pavement. And now have you seen, do you still have to see issues with people going the wrong way or not so much? I don't. That is not a problem any longer. Good. Yay.  So in both directions, Eve, although I don't feel safe riding the other way, but you know, I navigate around people. So I have one just fear of the back end parking combined with the counterflow bike lane is that we don't have enough room for the person. It's not a super wide road. So the person backing into a parking spot, their front end has to swing into the counterflow bike lane. When you're backing into a parking spot, you're not looking in front of you. That's my one big fear with the counterflow bike path. And I'm going to let it lie. I don't see it as something that's going to occur a lot. I just have that one tiny fear in the back of my head that it might happen. But I think a cyclist is cyclists are, you know, I bike all over to I'm not like a hardcore cyclist, but I bike all over town. And and cyclists are more aware than the driver sometimes. And I was biking down the road and saw a driver with their head over their shoulder pointed backwards, you'd pause before you try to hammer through and drive by them. Yeah, I was sorry to put it on there to warn bicyclists to watch for backing up drivers or something. Yeah. And I mean, wouldn't that be a concern as well on the main section of North Pleasant Street with the, right, the quote, temporary back end parking, because there's a lot higher flow of bicyclists there. Well, you're looking behind you and the cyclist is coming from behind you though. Yeah, you're not bringing into the lane, which is out of your view. Yeah, I hear you. But that's my it's a tiny fear. And I think I'm talking to myself out of it finally. But it was like when it first got brought up, I was like, what? Oh, my God, we need to widen. I know we can't widen anymore. We're already maxed out. We're pushed up against the property line on one side, the telephone poles on the other side. Right. And I saw we were I weren't aren't we getting rid of the green space on that? That was the discussion. Yeah. That's what I meant. That's what I'm in our proposed plan. We've maxed out. We've pushed everything as far as we can in the proposed plan not existing. Okay. And now what's the status with Pomeroy? Pomeroy and West Street? Pomeroy and West Street, the roundabouts under construction. It's it's hard to see all we're doing is underground drainage right now. So all the drainage has been going in. They've been working for the last two weeks, installing some of the drainage that is to accommodate the future roundabout there. We're hoping to have them get as much stuff in the ground until the weather goes really far north, I guess, it doesn't go south when it goes cold. But yeah, so we're going to let them do as much as possible. That allows all the varied stuff to get as much settlement as possible before they come in and do all the official improvements, the granite and the paving and everything else. It's horrible to have a trench settle after you've finished a brand new paving job and you can visibly see a construction trench that settled a year later. So we're hoping to get that in, let it all settle and let let everything be ready for the spring. So yeah, Caracas has started that they're they're working right along. They ordered all the granite for that has a really long lead time that should be here next year and then they should be able to get started on the rest of the work. Right. And then, okay, in East Pleasant Street. So what's the saddest with them? There was a sidewalk surveying that was done? Yeah, I wanted to ask about the North Pleasant before you go on. Okay, go ahead. So a long time ago, back when I was on the tack, I had asked Gil for a guilt. One of the things that I thought was just a really bad idea is to have the multi purpose lane switch. And especially just because watching the students, they all walk on the West side, because that's where most of the housing is. And so my thought was, you know, that's really where the attention needs to go is on the West side. And Gilbert said, No, you just can't do it, you know, because of the where the curbs are and where the light poles are. And I asked him to just get a cost estimate. Like what what would it actually take to do and how much more money would it cost to get the multi use lane on one side of that street? And I'm just wondering if you you know, and one of the things he said was, you know, we'd have to move the light poles. And I said, Well, let's just put it in the next time the light poles go in, they're going to get put in a place where that would make that possible. He said, Oh, we can't do that. So I'm just curious to follow up on that whether that kind of like just even a very rough cost estimate of how much more that would cost than the way it's planned out would be. So we've we've come up with a rough, you know, it's a small ballpark figure, but it's close to $10,000 per utility relocate. When you ask them to relocate it to the other side of the street, they really freak out. The utility guys, they like their straight lines, everything in a straight line. Otherwise, you need all the guy wires, tying things back and pulling the tension. So you know how North Puzzle does a nice meandering curve for the full length. So that's why the utility poles like start off on one side, then they kind of make the leap across when the road curves. So it, it gets really expensive to move poles. Because you're moving, not only are you moving that one pole, you're moving the four utilities hanging from the pole. And then anything that goes down the pole and underground also has to be moved. So it's, it's not a joke that it does, it does come out to close to 10 grand per pole. And so if you're looking at a long stretch like that, you're talking about 40 to 50 poles. So but like we just had a whole bunch of poles put in new on East Pleasant and in my neighborhood, like, and I know that happens like once every 50 years, but it seems like that's been happening. Like what if, you know, is there even the option to say, okay, next time that happens, we're going to do it in this different place. Is that even an option? No, because they just came at us with that weird pole replacement thing this year. And they were like, I don't know, they had all their poles assessed last year. I don't know if you saw the survey crews going around with flipboards looking up at the poles and counting number of wires and stuff. But so they did all that last year. And then this year was their year, like these ones are critical, they have to go there. They basically called them, they kind of called it emergency, not or a high priority, just like they did their high tension. So that is a once in a blue moon kind of opportunity. And unless we were doing a project, it didn't happen. We managed to sneak we managed to get cold where we wanted them on the Pomeroy Village project because because they had those slated for replacements, we're like, okay, get them out of our roundabout. And they they did accommodate us in that aspect. But everything else is kind of even even showed them plans for our future route nine Belcher Town Road project. And they couldn't accommodate anything extra there. They just they kind of just had to put the poles as close to the existing pole as they could, because they have to coordinate with the other three utility companies. Once they move, once ever source moves their stuff, they have to, you know, coordinate with Verizon, Comcast, and a fiber company, at least, to move everything else. So it's, it's very complicated. And it's, there's a ton of red tape, we, we've moved poles on paving projects three years ago, and the existing pole is still in the way. And the Verizon and the Comcast is still hanging on the old pole, all the other sources move well away. And you go to the bottom of that pole, and there's five rear view mirrors laying at the base of it that have been from clipped off of moving vehicles. So the poles are difficult. Yeah, it seems like something that would be useful that like at least think about in the future, I mean, if it can't be done on North Pleasant, like, where is it? Main Street, you know, that one, it's just so difficult without some movement of the poles to do something. Okay, well, thanks for that explanation. That's helpful. Well, and wait, I noticed too, I mean, I know it's a state project, but the on North Hampton Road, right, where they've been laying out the sidewalk on the south side, yeah, that they that the light poles are remaining in between like the road and the sidewalk. Yeah, that gives them their target three foot grassbill. So the grassbill will be where the poles are, is that right then? Yeah, is that the idea? Okay. Got it. All right, so what were the other? Oh, we were going to talk about East Pleasant. Yeah, East Pleasant. Yeah, East Pleasant, I haven't touched. We do have this survey, which is great. We finally have all the all the boundary, the property lines there are the right of ways. While it varies at Olympian Drive, it's not 100 feet, but after you pass Eastman Lane, it's it increases to about 100 foot right of way, which is insane. Wow. There are houses that practically touch the their property line. And there's yeah, there's driveways that are almost entirely within the existing right of way there. And we now and the road is nowhere near centered in the right of way. It's the hit meanders the whole length of the way, which makes all projects a little more difficult, but but still doable. We know we know we have the space, we just have to figure out what we want, where we want it.  Yeah, so I was I was curious what the next step was. And I was part of the East Pleasant folks, because I live right near there, who went out and interviewed homeowners and basically the consensus of the neighborhood was you do need something on both sides because that basically because that street is not safe to cross for like kids. And part of the idea is there are tons of people in the neighborhoods on each side and to make it so people can travel up and down. You kind of need something on both sides.  You know, so if we want to make these, you know, spaces safe for all kinds of people to use for all kinds of purposes where what we had come up with and I'm not talking about the tack, I'm talking about the neighborhood folks was you need at least a six foot sidewalk on on both sides of the street because otherwise you're stuck sending these vulnerable people across that pretty dangerous street potentially. There's no good.  But right now, if you just painted a crosswalk on there, no one would stop. Yeah, no, no. Jason, when you said that you guys will develop some concepts and then move forward from there. What does that look like? Is that just sort of an internal conversation within DPW maybe iterative with the planning department or is that something that actually goes to the public either, you know, through the TSO or through us in terms of taking a look at the concepts. We start out with the real broad brushstrokes, what's possible, what's not possible, what are the, you know, what are the really prime street trees that are no, you know, that's a non-starter, this tree can't go. That's kind of how we start out. We we slap some lines on a really rough plan and we say, OK, here's the obstacles, here's the challenges, here, you know, we just kind of really broadly sit down with a really broad brushstroke plan and then we sort of start, start sort of refining it as we go there and we do a lot of that does take place in house, but we leave a lot of the options and we get, we try to get the options to a presentable state where they're not like just, you know, what we start with is pretty ugly and then what we, what we get like to conceptual phase, we know where the, we know roughly where the crosswalks are going to be. We know what light poles may or may not need to move, we know what shade trees are either going to have to go or the sidewalk project doesn't go. So we try to get it to that point and like figure out what's acceptable, you know, you get to the North Amherst Cemetery there and, you know, you've got to be really careful, you've got to tread real carefully, big trees, historic fences, that sort of stuff, everywhere else, we've got a fair amount of room to play. The other constriction on that whole stretch is the wetland crossing at between Eastman and Olympia. So that, that probably is only going to be a one sided sidewalk on that stretch. So we got to figure out what the easy side is. And if we're doing a bridge or if we're filling in, you know, filling in wetlands is probably a no go. So we're going to have to figure out what we do have a bridge down at Wastewater that may or may not have been obtained for this purpose. So then figuring out which side it goes on, how well we can engineer this and how well we can permit it. So that's a big consideration. There's a couple other minor wetlands on that stretch too. There's some down by Cherry Lane.  We might be able to get sidewalk all the way to Cherry Lane and then have to cross over because that sort of does stop. That's sort of the end of the neighborhoods on that side.  We can't fill it in. We don't have the room to replicate if we do fill it in. And you can't just fill in wetlands, like, you know, without any, without compensating or without recreating twice the wetlands that you take away. So all those sort of considerations going to our big conceptual stuff and then we kind of come back with, OK, this is what we can do. And if there's, you know, if there's strong pushback, no, we want to sidewalk all the way to the cemetery. Then we try to figure out how to make that work. Maybe it bumps into the bike lane. Maybe it's right up against the road and it splits around telephone poles and sort of silly stuff like that. It's not our ideal solution, but it's a solution. Well, that's kind of in that in that scenario, where would the pushback come from if this is all an internal conversation? Oh, well, so then you go and you you show it to the counselors or I just sometimes we'll start sometimes we'll start meeting internally with the Conservation Department, you know, if it's if it's a wetland, we start meeting with them and we say, yeah, yeah, got it. Understood. You know, we've got to we don't have enough right of way to recreate wetlands anywhere. So that's that's usually a non-starter. So we have to figure out what our best options are there. So a lot of times it'll it'll start in-house DPW in-house, then it might branch out a little further to town manager planning, conservation, that sort of, you know, that sort of second look at it. And at that point, we'll we'll sort of narrow down like, OK, here's three concepts, OK, a lot of then then we'll take the three concepts and kind of go public. And you guys are typically one of those first stops. Oh, that's great. So conceptual plans. So, Jason, where do you think, I mean, I know when Guilford was last with the TAC and that he was saying that the work plan is already like being built out pretty much for the 2023 season and a good part of 2024. And I mean, a project like East Pleasant Street, like setting the sidewalks, like what sort of rough timeframe would you see for having improvements there? Like, I know. I know the town's involved with a lot of other projects right now. Yeah. So the cool thing about East Pleasant Street is that we got the road done. And we know we have plenty of extra space. So they and the roads in beautiful shape. The road we did. Well, we did one of my favorite treatments on the road is the full depth reclaimed with asphalt injection. That road's not going anywhere for a long time. So and then the town and the town council have been great with giving us just a little bit of extra money for sidewalks lately. So that's kind of allowing us to do. And a lot of that was aimed towards existing sidewalks that are in horrible shape. And I agree with that approach because there's certainly many ones that are impassable and whatnot. So but I mean, with the with the town council being pro sidewalk, this could become its own little sidewalk project. And it could potentially just go on its own because you can take away all the road costs other than the crossings. And you can this is designable and buildable without doing too much to the roads infrastructure. There's a few weird drainage scenarios, but that's really minor work. I mean, it's going to get pretty ugly, though. I'm just looking at the town maps and some of these houses, like you say, are like right up on the property line. They if we start going through people's driveways in the wrong spaces, I'm assuming there's going to be a fair amount of push back on that sort of stuff. So that potentially pushes out the time frame, I think, to Tracy's point, right? It's not something that's going to be necessarily. Tomorrow, it doesn't solve everything, Marcus, but when we knocked door to door, 80 percent of the homeowners. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just looking at a few few in particular that aren't owner occupied and, you know, are going to miss very going to be missing some carports for the parking. Yeah, because of where we go and things like that. So, yeah, well, so I know I know just looking at our schedule now, I know Chris said she had to leave by like 6 30. Yes, I was going to say. Coming up quickly. And so well, Jason, thank you for the updates you've given us. And we look forward to continuing the conversation. And I know Guilford had said that he had his like lists of projects that are coming up. So I feel like the town is making doing a lot of projects. Kim, I have one comment and this is just toward what we were just discussing, which is the, you know, the town put some made some nice reconstructed some sidewalks, particularly in our neighborhood, my neighborhood. But, you know, while I was running this weekend with the snow, I was really shocked at the number of sidewalks that were impossible. Like and I'm a pretty adventurous runner and the sidewalks were literally impossible because because homeowners did not shovel their sidewalks.  So I think I really feel like the town needs to state explicitly somewhere. Like, please, everyone, you know, it's time if you have a sidewalk, you're responsible for it because now there are all these brand new sidewalks like on McClellan and half half of it is inplowed and they're beautiful and flat and people on all kinds of modes can use those sidewalks. But in the absence of people simply shoveling, you can't use them. Yeah, so this is actually free. It's ridiculous. So G.O.L. Right now, the Council's governance, organization, legislation committee has been looking because I requested at the snow and ice bylaw. The current bylaw that says property owners are responsible and who does enforcement. And I mean, the thing that Guilford brought up at that meeting, there was a meeting yesterday, even, is that because as a courtesy, the DPW has been plowing some of the streets, like some of the streets, like Strong Street and other streets that can have a large number of pedestrians, then certain homeowners are like not doing it at all. Right. But but ultimately, homeowners are liable. No, and they are liable. I mean, the state Supreme Court has said that the homeowners are liable and that, you know, and the DPW doesn't always get out to do the sidewalk. So I mean, so last week, the town put in or earlier this week, the town put a notice on the town website to reiterate that it's the property owners that are responsible, but they really need to do more outreach.  Like they need to really push. And, you know, I've seen some good PSAs like the city of East Hampton has one and stuff just to really push how important is the sidewalks week clear and that even if the town occasionally does a pass on people's sidewalks, the property owners are still responsible. We discussed this last year or two years ago, because it's been annoying a lot of us. But I mean, what you talked about, though, Lincoln isn't one of the ones that gets the pass, right? It's on the main arteries most some sections do. Yeah, but all our sort of policy is our general policy. We do school zones. So anywhere kids walk to school, we try to do those because the schools are town owned properties and we have to do those anyways. Right. And then there's another group of properties where so we have to go all the way out to the landfill on Old Belcher Town Road. There's no sense in driving a sidewalk plow all that way and not dropping the plow. So we do properties on the way to town properties and we do as much as we can in the school zones for major school routes. And then of course, there's a doubt in the downtown. And in order to report people, you have to call the parking people. You have to actually call the town. I mean, so this came up last year and this is another thing that I asked you well and the council to look at is that the way the bylaws written is it says the enforcement is done by the police. So what you actually need to do what I was told last year when I was wanting to complain is that you need to call the police dispatch line currently. But what the G.O.L. was talking about yesterday is expanding enforcement capabilities to the DPW. I mean, Guilford said that, you know, they have he a staff who could help with that, also to inspection because I really I think that makes a lot of sense for it to be with inspection because inspectors are out looking at other aspects of, you know, rental properties and homeowners properties and trash all kind of a maintenance thing. And yeah, I know. But to whenever we spoke about intact, we were told that it was parking management you had to call. You call the town of management and they are the ones that she's fine. It's the police department. That's what I'm saying. So the the information has changed since then. So we're talking about how things of I mean, for what we have been told, Jason, I understand that maybe it's always been that way. But that's just goes to point out the fact that nobody really has a single point of contact. And we've actually just lost quorum. And it just needs to be clear. No, Kim's just left. We've just lost quorum. Oh, so so. Well, she might have gotten kicked off or something. But anyway. Yeah, no, I understand. But we can continue to have that discussion. We can talk, but you can't make a decision. No, and G.O. Is review G.O. Is reviewing it. So yeah, I mean, I I founded my archive like an email, a letter I had written to the town like 20 years ago saying, how about like clearing the sidewalks? I mean, you could write the same letter today about the same issues. And so the current bylaw is not that effective in terms of the enforcement. So and it's like, well, so Pine Street, you guys come up and down Pine Street every once in a while with the sidewalk now, but then you're also going up and down it with the main plow and the sidewalk is right next to the road. So depending on which one goes first, you know, it's just it's going to mess it up. And then that's where it comes into the home owners to actually go out and sort it out. But they don't think they need to. I mean, the plow's gone out. But that's where you really I mean, maybe we can even ask like to go in the water and sewer bill or something like just to really reiterate that. Yeah, and there's a response to all. So yeah, all right. Well, since we don't have quorum, I guess we'll end there. But I did want to just mention that I've been in touch with the Pine Valley Planning Commission and their transportation planners did want to come to our next meeting and talk about the regional long range transportation plan. And they also mass duty wants to present the statewide plan. So I wanted to just make sure that they lined up mass duty person to come and Kim says she can't get back in. So because sometimes I think if somebody accidentally got kicked out, you know, doesn't let them back in. OK, no. I'll just we can just end, I think. But so just if people think that they're available January 3rd, I guess we'll send around an email to you just to confirm. But they've already lined up the state person to come. So I just wanted to be like, OK, we'll do January 3rd. Also, by that time, we should have two new TAC members because it's going to TSO for approval tonight. And then the council will hopefully approve it too. And I I was very persistent with Paul and trying to get this through. So I'm excited to have our new members, including take home and who you've met before, who's that grad student at UMass doing transit work. So thanks. Thanks. Thank you, guys. Oh, I'm on the phone. If you guys want anything else. So just we'll just tell him we wrapped up and yeah. And thank you, Jason, for coming. Yeah, thank you very much. All right, take care of everyone. Bye. Bye. You start about that. No problem. I see. Yeah, that's encouraging that they.


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Welcome to the Job Search Preparation Resume Writing Workshop. I'm Cynthia White, Human Sciences Regional Extension Agent with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System. Extension carries out the land grant mission of Auburn University and Alabama A&M University. We provide educational programs statewide through a network of county extension offices. I work in the areas of financial management and workforce development. This workshop will cover resume writing. As we know, most employers will require that you submit a resume in order to actually apply for a job with their organization. Now a resume is a written summary of how a person's skills, work experience, and education relate to a target job. A resume gives an employer insight into what an individual has to offer and opens the door to a job interview. On average, employers spend about 60 to 90 seconds reviewing a resume before making that decision on whether or not that applicant should move to the next phase of the employment process. This means that you have a quick second to get an employer interested in meeting you in person. So the materials that you present to that employer must communicate your qualifications quickly and clearly. Now a cover letter sets the stage for the resume. You always attach a cover letter to a resume when submitting it for a job application. Now the purpose of that cover letter is to motivate the employer to read the entire resume for the details. So you think of the cover letter as somewhat of a commercial that's designed to get the employer interested in learning a little more about you. So to be effective, that cover letter must emphasize your strongest job qualifications and should typically be kept to about one page in length. Now preparing an effective resume and cover letter is really not difficult, but it does require careful thought and requires that you think through exactly what content is going to be included in that resume and how to present that content in the most impactful manner. So putting forth a little extra effort in creating that resume and cover letter just puts you a little bit closer to landing that job and on the right path to achieving your employment goals. Now in this resume writing workshop, you will learn the guidelines to follow when preparing a resume, how to select a resume style, information that should be included in a resume, how to write and organize a cover letter, and how to format an electronic resume. Now we're going to start off with a resume writing checklist. This you will have to kind of look back on, it gives you some tips, things to always consider when creating or updating your resume. You can just frequently take a look at these items and make sure that they're always included. Write the resume to meet the needs of the employer. Place a strong summary near the top of the resume. Highlight skills that are relevant to the job. If you have trouble spots, include contents that point to your future, not your past. Include measurable details and action verbs. Include accurate information and avoid errors. Range information logically so that it is easy to read and follow. Design a resume that is simple and clean. Limit the resume to two pages maximum. Use an 11 or 12 point font. Use margins that are one inch wide all the way around. Use white or cream colored paper. Use black ink to keep color to a minimum. A few additional resume writing tips. Review the job announcement. You want to make sure you review that job announcement for the job qualifications and requirements. Then make sure that you match that information or your information to the requirements that are described in that job announcement. Consider the employer's perspective. Now the employer feels positions job openings to address needs of that organization. So what you need to do is paint a picture of how you can contribute to those needs for that organization. So you may have a laundry list of information or skills and requirements that you have for yourself. But you want to resist the urge to fill your resume with skills and accomplishments that have nothing to do with the job that you're applying for. Tailor the resume to the targeted job. Take a close look at what you have to offer and only include that training skills and experience that's going to show you as qualified and capable of doing that job and doing it well. Organize the information under headings and subheadings. Use clearly defined sections to make sure that that resume is easy for the reader to follow and understand. And now in each section, you want to place your strongest qualifications first. Always remember one size does not fit all. You will need to prepare a basic resume and then edit that resume for each job that you apply for. Typically the combination resume works really well for these situations because it contains your work history as well as your skills and accomplishments. So then you can just switch it up, make those edits to target the particular job that you're applying for at that time. Now there are several different resume styles and it is really important to use a resume style that makes your skills, your experience and your background really stand out and shine. So you want to look at a style and choose a style that minimizes any weaknesses that could possibly work against you but focuses on those positive things that we really want to stand out. So we're going to look at three different resume styles, chronological resume, the skills-based resume and the combination resume. Each style is going to be a little more effective in certain situations as opposed to others so you always want to use the one that makes you look the strongest and most impressive. The first style that we will look at today will be the chronological resume. Now the chronological resume typically benefits job seekers with a strong consistent work history. If there are any employment gaps that chronological resume is going to show them because it does list those states. And so that could be problematic if you don't want to reveal those gaps as well as if you don't want to show or bring attention to your actual age. Sometimes that could be fearing age discrimination or something. So if those are the things that concern you then the chronological resume may not be the style of choice for you. Skills-based resume which is also referred to as the functional resume is the next style that we will look at. The skills-based resume will have the skills and accomplishments front and center. They're going to be your focus. The skills are going to be organized in those relevant categories. And this one is particularly beneficial if the applicant has worked short-term jobs or has limited work experience or perhaps is changing careers or re-entering the workforce. Now the one con about this is sometimes employers review this or feel that this is one that is concealing information. So we have to make sure that we're careful about that as well. The next style resume is the combination resume. And we're going to look at a couple different samples of the combination resume. The combination resume is a combination of the chronological and skills-based resume. It will emphasize both the skills and the work history. So you can include relevant work history and skills that are relevant to this job but it does not focus on or highlight those gaps in employment. The next style is also a combination resume. This one shows the benefits of the job seeker that is looking to change industry or particularly change jobs or again re-entering the workforce and even veterans transitioning to a civilian position. It's going to focus on those skills, highlighting those skills, putting them up at the top. And so it doesn't bring a lot of attention to dates or work history. Style of the combination resume is one that is going to be easier or shows how it can be used with multiple pages. You're always going to use the page number in the event that you have to use multiple pages. Now, there are times, although they say don't use or you don't want to have more than one page, there are times that you will have more information than what will fit on one page. And if it's job-related skills and work history, then you definitely want to include that information. Try not to go over two pages, but always make sure that you include the page number. Now, we'll look at a couple of scenarios that will help you kind of look at the styles of the resume a little closer. This particular one is going to be James. James worked in the automotive industry for 15 years where he had a solid employment record. However, the plant closed down and James moved to another state. He is now applying for a job in the new automotive plant that just opened. He wants to move into a management position this time where he can utilize the knowledge and skills that he's developed over the years. If he is successful, it will be his first time in management. So what we have is James is currently in the automotive industry. He has a solid employment record, but his current employer closed, and that's the only reason he's looking for a job. So he wants to continue in that industry, but he wants to move into a management position. So in this situation, James would lose a chronological or combination resume. Because he has that solid work history, he can still use the chronological resume. Now, he's standing in that same industry, but he wants to move to a higher level position. So he would want to focus a little on his skills. So he does need to emphasize those skills and knowledge that he's gained over the years. This one is Brittany. Now Brittany just graduated from high school. She developed many skills through club participation, sports. She maintained a high grade point average and is looking for her very first job. She's worried that her lack of experience might prevent her from finding employment. So again, she just graduated from high school. She's been active in clubs and sports. She has a high GPA, but she doesn't have any work experience. So Brittany is going to go with the skills-based resume. This is her first job, and she needs to highlight her skills and accomplishments, achievements that she didn't necessarily obtain from employment but from other activity, other life experiences, which include volunteering, sports, clubs, and other activities. And next one is going to be Martha. Now Martha worked as a teacher's assistant in a daycare for three years. She now wants a job as a customer service representative at a call center. This will allow her to work the night shift and care for her elderly mother during the day. Martha is an active volunteer and has taken on many leadership roles in organizations. She has picked up a variety of managerial, organizational, and communication skills that are valuable to many employers. So our key points here. Martha is a teacher's assistant currently. She has three years experience so she has a steady work history. She's applying for a call center job, which is different from what she was currently doing. And she has many leadership roles and good business skills that she's developed outside of her employment. Here we're going to go with the skills-based resume because she's changing industry. It's not apparent that she has skills for the call center position, so she's going to need to highlight those skills and knowledge that she's actually obtained through life experiences like her unpaid volunteering and her community activities. Our next sample or scenario is Andy. Andy worked as a machinist for many years. When he got laid off, Andy enrolled in a computer programming course at the local college. So now he has a new skill set and he's looking for employment to use that new skill set as a computer programmer. So again, Andy's a machinist. He got laid off, which is why he's looking for employment. He's gained a new skill set during his time off and so he's looking for something to utilize that new skill set that he obtained outside of his work experience. So for Andy, we're going to go with the combination resume. While he does have a strong work history, he does also need and want to highlight that new skill set that he's obtained outside of his employment. So he wants to focus on that. So he's going to focus on the skills as well as his employment history. So we've looked at those three styles, or those scenarios, and I hope that those scenarios gave you a little more insight into how to choose the appropriate resume style based on your situation. And now we'll look at a little more at the actual resume and the contents that will need to be included in the resume. Now we know that that resume is going to be a summary of that person's history, work history, skills, and accomplishments. So that effective resume is going to be written to communicate a person's best qualities for that job. So to be considered a good job candidate, you're going to want to put your strongest information on that resume. The information must also make sure that it is relevant to that job that you're targeting. So to achieve those goals, you're going to look at four basic categories of information, that name and contact information, the skills and accomplishments, the work experience, and the education and training. So when we look here at our name and contact information, we want to make sure that basic your name, first and last name, using your middle initial or middle name is optional. Your street address, if you're not comfortable with sharing your full street address, just make sure that you include the city and state where you live. You want to make sure that you're using and including a working telephone number for your contact number. Make sure that the recorded greeting on that phone is a pleasant and tasteful greeting. So you also want to inform your family if someone else is available. So if you're using a house phone and other people might answer that phone, you want to make sure that you inform your family that you are searching for a job and you are expecting to receive phone calls from potential employers. That way you want them to make sure that when they're answering the phone that they are courteous as well and that they are quick to notify you of calls that are coming in. We also want to make sure that we're including an email address. Many employers are beginning to make communication for job candidates or with job candidates through emails. This means that you're going to need to have a working email address that you check frequently. So it's kind of a good idea to sometimes open a new email address that's set aside specifically for contact and communication with potential employers or people that are involved in that job search. This keeps your job related communications separated from other messages and using this separate email address will also help you to see and respond to those emails quickly and efficiently. You want to make sure that you choose a username that sounds professional. Perhaps that first initial and last name is an easy way to remember and it's also a safe way to develop an email address that's specifically for business purposes. Now I want to look at these skills and accomplishment section. A resume is going to be your personal marketing tool and it's designed to sell an employer on the idea of offering you an interview. So employers expect to gain a good understanding of what you can do based on what's in that resume. So a clear description of your skills and accomplishment is a must in your resume. So everyone has skills and accomplishments including individuals that have never held an actual job before. Throughout our lives we grow, we develop and as a result of that formal training some community involvement volunteering, parenting, internships, extracurricular activities, projects, just all of our life experiences we develop skills and accomplishments. If you look closely at the many roles and things that you've gone through during your life you would be surprised at the skills and accomplishments that you've actually accumulated. Now if you have one way that we can always do this is we also there's a tool online that's on the website mynextmove.org or even onnetonline.org and those are two websites that you can access and take a skills inventory assessment and that will help you to kind of pull out your skill set based on things that you've done throughout your life. Looking at your helps you to kind of guide you into taking an inventory of your life experiences where you have developed those skills and accomplishments and don't even realize it. Now there are also situations where individuals who are re-entering the workforce are identifying those skills for their resume may be a little more challenging. So you may have a new graduate and if they're looking to apply for a position this is their first job they may have to be a little more creative in considering skills that they learn through possibly coursework extracurricular activities volunteering, sports looking for those marketable skills for those new graduates might require a little more creativity so they might want to do a little additional research or additional skills assessment for sure into looking into extracurricular activities things that they've done throughout their coursework. Formerly incarcerated that may be another challenging situation to determine your skills and accomplishments and so you may want to consider looking at experiences and training that was obtained before that confinement and also looking at skills that were learned through a job or trade or certification that was done during your confinement or if maybe you were required to do community service you may want to consider your skills that you developed during that time and those might be skills that are actually marketable as well because it's always going to be important that you present that information in a positive way and not in a negative way. Again if you're just returning to the workforce you've been out of work for a while it's important to look for ways to overcome those gaps so it may be positions or short term positions or volunteer work community involvement or other experiences that actually took place during those gaps and those are also going to be when you want to use that skills base or combination resume to put that attention on your skills and not necessarily those fragments in your work history. Another thing is we're going to talk about those summary statements the summary statements that we want to make sure are included now the summary statements are also they've been referred to previously and by other names it might say objective we may have heard of it as referred to an objective we always want to make sure that we include our summary's statements as well that's going to be a common way to to make the skills and accomplishments stand out on that resume. The summary statement clearly communicates the most important qualifications and makes them visible right up front and employer can review hundreds of resumes but if an applicant's strongest points are not highly visible then that resume is likely to be tossed aside so an effective summary statement is going to grab that employer's attention and it just might keep your resume from hitting that file 13 also known as the trash being. A summary statement can take a few different forms and can be called different names and so what's important is to use a style that complements the information that you want to emphasize so you review let's review a few examples here we're going to look at the professional summary this particular summary summary points that are going to emphasize the points that you do not want that employer to miss out on so an example here is a certified electrician with experience in commercial construction proficient in electrical installation maintenance and repair of advanced electrical systems that possess excellent technical problem solving and communication skills and team oriented safety minded and able to work with minimal supervision that's an example of a professional summary where you have certain things that you want highlighted and don't want to be missed here's one if you want to highlight your qualifications and you just want to include maybe a bullet list of those relevant skills and so here's an example of those bullet points 18 years of varied experience in increasing responsibility in secretarial positions highly skilled and greeting customers and answering phone calls proven ability to handle multiple competing priorities in an effective manner through thorough knowledge of written English grammar spelling vocabulary and punctuation this one highlights those relevant skills and you can easily list them and have them stand out by using links another one is the skills and summary of skills this one again you're using those bullets if you're going to show those contributions to an organization showing those skills are in high demand and essential to that particular targeted job that one can look a little something like this this is the skills and summary and you just have them listed you know with the things that are important that you feel are in high demand and want to stand out this is an accomplishment statement now with your accomplishment statement it's going to show an action and achievements an example of that one would be increased volunteers from 25 to 60 over a two year period conducted 125 seminars for bank staff members maintain the company webpage and increased online sales by 20% in six months so this one focuses on those accomplishments highlights those accomplishments brings them to the top where they can make sure that that potential employer sees those right off the top and gives them a little more interest in reading further and looking at the details is that you want to make sure that you remember when looking at the summary statement and creating that summary statement always remember that that summary statement is going to be placed on the first page of the resume and your qualifications will be difficult to be overlooked if they're right there under that contact information so you're definitely going to have it on the front you're going to list the most important skills and accomplishments first things that are most important to that job you want to make sure that you list them first you want to make sure that you are concise making sure that each point is easy to read and understand you want to look for keywords in that job announcement that indicate the knowledge the skills the abilities that that employer is looking for what they actually want in that new employee and you want to use those same key terms those same keywords in your resume and in describing your skills and accomplishments so you want to make sure that you're using keywords and action verbs that are listed in that job description looking at that job announcement and pulling out those keywords what they're looking for and you turn around and use those same key terms in your resume and cover letter looking at work experience you want to list relevant jobs that you have held previously and briefly state the duties associated with each one of those jobs if you're using a combination style resume you want to indicate the significant accomplishments or contributions that you've made to that particular organization using that action words that can help you accurately describe your job duties and your contributions you want to list the most recent job first and list all the other jobs in descending order and you want to make sure that you include your job title or the position and the company name and the dates of employment and location like the city and state education and training you want to make sure that you're listing any diploma certificate or any degree that you've earned that's relevant to the job that you're targeting indicate the year that it was you know received organize this information from the highest level of education obtained to the lowest and making sure that you include the name of the school the dates are a year that you completed the location city and state the field of study or your major and if there was any specialized training in reference to that things that you don't include in a resume you're not going to include your references you will supply as references upon request personal information you definitely don't want to include things like your age your birthday your social security number those things are not going to be included in your resume weaknesses you're never going to focus on weaknesses always want to focus on the strong points and the positive childhood background not relevant parental status that is not relevant your date of availability you all will discuss that later in the interview but don't include it in your resume any type of health or physical description definitely not going to be included in your resume reasons for leaving a prior job not we're focusing on the positive your desired salary that can be discussed in the interview or after they actually extended offer but do not put that information on your in your resume never using slang language written testimonials no photographs we do not include photographs on our resumes charts and graphs you're going to limit strictly to text information in abbreviations do not use abbreviations spell words out use complete sentences and punctuation I will take a look at a cover letter we're going to make sure that we're creating a cover letter and using all the key points there the contents of a cover letter is going to start with one you want to make sure that you're using the return address your mailing address which includes your information your name your address your city and state and your zip code the date of course the recipients address that's going to be the person that you're sending this letter or two make sure that you have the correct name the correct job title and the correct address for the person that's in charge of filling that position now that may take a little research where you may even have to actually contact that organization but do try to make that extra effort to achieve that to obtain that information a greeting most of the time you're going to start it with Dear Mr. Mrs. or Ms. and you're going to follow that with that individual's name that's going to be reading that cover letter again that goes back to doing that research to determine exactly who that person is then we're going to look at the contents which is starting with the body the body is going to have you're going to start with the introduction you're going to say why you're sending that letter and that could be you know an example would be I'm writing to apply for a position posted on your company website my resume is enclosed for the nurse practitioner in position and that was just given an example your first paragraph you're going to write about why you're interested in that job and briefly talk about the skills and the knowledge that you have that make you qualified for that job tell why you're interested in that company as well now your second paragraph is going to highlight any related experience that you have be sure to tell how you can meet the qualifications in that job as they have it advertised and point out any relevant training classes or anything that you've completed that's relevant to that position and those requirements your closing paragraph you're going to close by thanking that reader and requesting that interview now example of that would be I welcome the opportunity to discuss my qualifications with you in person I can be reached out and then provide your contact information thank you for your time and consideration you always want to make sure you use that complimentary close ending that letter with the salutation such as sincerely or thank you leave space to actually sign the letter at the bottom and then type your name just below where you would actually sign and then you'll at the very bottom you'll have signature enclosure and after your signature that is going to indicate that your resume is actually attached or enclosed here is an example of a cover letter just for you to review and it includes all that information that we refer to that return address the date the recipient address the salutation the body the closing paragraph your complimentary close and then your signature and enclosure just a few tips for the cover letter always make sure that you address the right person mention your top qualifications for that job make sure you discuss the ways that you can meet that company's needs write a well organized easy to read letter get someone to proofread it get someone to go back to spell check grammar check and all of that explain how you meet that organization's needs and be sure to check for errors and make any necessary corrections now in the event that you're submitting that resume electronically which a lot of organizations are now opting to have the application and resume submitted online so in that case you're going to do that resume a tad bit different you want to you're not going to use the standard resume when you apply it's going to need to be converted to that electronic format and so the electronic resume is going to contain the same information as that standard resume but the electronic information is going to need to be in plain text all of your formatting like anything that's been bolded or underlined that's going to need to be removed and electronic resume is going to it's often referred to as a plain text resume so by removing that formatting it allows the computer system to send that a resume without it becoming distorted on the other end so the document won't be changed while it's being sent from one computer to another that way the receiver will be able to easily read and understand the contents of that resume without trying to figure out exactly what happened now with the electronic resume here are a few tips want to use plain text you want to justify left just justify the text to the left margin you want to limit each line to 65 characters capitalize your headings all text is going to be the same size so the way your headings are standing out is by using capitalization no bold no italics no underlining no bullets you can use the hyphen or the asterisk but don't use any bullets because they're going to be disfigured never use jpeg or any type of graphics period just simply plain text again you want to save it in plain text a few additional tips send the resume electronically only if that is what the company or organization that where you are applying request produce a paper version and convert it to plain text never save in pdf remove all page separations do not use the tab key to align the text instead use the return key a good thing would be to purchase a jump drive save your resume on there that way you can easily pull it up and make changes when necessary anytime you post your resume on some of the online database systems like maybe indeed or monster.com make sure that you go back periodically and update that resume update that information to just keep it fresh thank everyone so much to for taking a look at this workshop on resume writing my contact information is here if anyone or anyone is interested in contacting us for a full interactive session on resume writing or any of the other topics that we provide information on or workshops on you can take a look and find that out on our website www.aces.edu and my contact information again is right here Cynthia White thanks so much for taking a look at this resume writing workshop


In the region of Jhansi, there was a woman whose name was Jalkari Bhai, born in a Dalit family in 1830. In those days, she was not allowed to attend school, instead her father trained her in horse riding and using weapons. Local law says that she once gave a tiger that was attacking the villagers. She married a soldier in the Jhansi army. This is where Rani Lakshmi Bhai noticed that Jalkari Bhai was a very brave woman. When she found out about Jalkari Bhai's bravery and skills, Rani Lakshmi Bhai ensured that she was trained further in warfare. During Jhansi's war with British, after the king died, rumors say that it was Jalkari Bhai who asked Rani Lakshmi Bhai to escape with the infant prince for his safety. In a heroic step, Jalkari Bhai dressed up as the queen or Lakshmi Bhai and led the battle while the queen escaped along with the infant prince.  Many Dalit communities in Bundelkhand look up to her as a goddess even today and celebrate Jalkari Bhai Jayanti every year. We do not know how many such unsung heroes laid down their lives for India's freedom. As we celebrate the 75th year of independence, this is my effort to bring forth as many stories of such forgotten martyrs as possible. Jalkari Bhai, not a queen, not of royal birth, but born in a low-cost family but rose to a heroic heights of fighting the British and she is immortalized. In that region, it's time the nation remembers her. It is time the nation celebrates her heroic deeds, her valor and her skills in the battle. It is her ultimate sacrifice which allowed Rani Lakshmi Bhai to live and fight another day. We bow down to this great woman of India. Namaskaram.