We still have a motion on the floor.  I just want to say, Michael, you need to have your select board send a letter to Jerry and the board appointing, officially appointing. I just want to make sure you knew that. I do know that. I brought it up for the select board. Sorry. So I just know that I brought this up with our select board at their meeting last night. And at their next meeting, two weeks from last night, they will officially appoint John Reed. Excellent. Thank you. Back to the motion on the floor on the floor to approve the minutes of the prior meeting and they have been seconded by Siobhan motion by Jeremy Matt. Are we ready to vote on this then? Are there any opposed to the motion? Any abstentions? Hearing none, motion passes. Thank you very much. Let's, let's move on to our treasurer's report. Lori Beth, are you here with us? Doesn't look like it is on with us. I know she sent out information earlier today. Okay. Well, let's come back to that. If Lori Beth joins us or if she finds the mic, I'm not sure what, what the, what the issue might be. Okay. David, do you know where Lori's buying chance? Had she mentioned to you that she wasn't going to be available? No, she did not. Jerry, I can't, I can't give an explanation. Okay. Okay. Yeah. All right then. Let's move on to our construction materials, operations updates. And Janiel, I'll hand that over to you to walk through those. As you see fit, please. Sure. Good evening, everyone. First of all, I want to mention that we've had very successful, full 2023. This is our first board meeting of the year and we built over 200 miles and we lit about 60 customers. The last number I saw was 59 and there were 14 in the, in the queue to install this week. So a huge congrats to our construction and operations progress for our first construction season. We are still going strong even though it's winter, we are down a few crews and that's because we have limited make ready, ready, ready. We, we will be able to pick up as the, as the funding becomes available for marsh fields as the weather gets warmer, but also as we get more green licenses in, in callus in the hardwick electric region, we'll be able to open up some crews that are already in the field. We are still working closely with hardwick to open those up. I would like to pass this over to Lucas to allow, elaborate a bit on construction materials and warehousing and operations as well. Yes. Like Janiel said, we've got a lot done in our latest DA already, which has kind of caused a slowdown now that we don't, you know, we're not the green licenses anymore. You know, the latest numbers we have, which, which are going to be a little bit dated is we placed 115 miles of fiber and we have passed nearly 1600 service points. So, you know, we have a wide range out there right now for potential to bring on that, which is going to be exciting. Probably more of a operations, I guess, but we are going to be very close to lighting up the cabinets for the, the RS1 and RS02 DAs. So that's going to be another big, big piece of the pie that we can bring on that and get a lot more folks online. And I think the latest number I saw this morning for when customers before, which is probably, it's probably changed by end of day. So probably add on another few to that. So it's, you know, they're starting to climb really fast. And from what I hear, we have a lot in the queue in the next little while. So that should keep growing. Yeah, they just keep, they just keep going for us. We got two new drops cruise. So we are going strong. Waitfield is really pulling through for us. They have been an incredible partner for us. I also want to take this moment to mention our rate. We had initially, we had expected a take rate of about 42% after a three year period. We now already have a 39% take rate in Calis-01 and a 34% take rate in Calis-02 unheard of. We, we haven't even opened Calis-02. So it's amazing. It's more than we ever imagined. David Healy. David, you're on mute. So Lucas, when do you think we can open up RS01? So RS01, we have all the testing done there. So we're literally just trying to light the cabinet right now, get it turned up, which is just in the hands of our, in our TC right now to get Waitfield in for information in these so they know how to cart out the cart out of the box. So I would expect that to come through, could be any day, could be any day. I know it's hands of their quality, quality control folks. So all they have to do is give it the blessing and they can pass it on. And Lucas, the status of the backup generator? Yes. So the backup generator did not happen this last Monday as we had scheduled. Brookfield had lost some people and the scheduling kind of fell through the cracks, I guess. So I was in contact with them last night and again today. We're tentatively shooting for next Tuesday. We're coordinating with the Leslie fuels right now to make sure they can attend. If they give the green light on that, then we're going to do it next Tuesday. We also have next Wednesday and Thursday available to get that done. So hopeful next week will be the week. Yeah, that's great. So we're doing heavy planning and for the quarter for quarter one, the warehouse is open two days a week. So it's a limited warehouse schedule for kidding out and for accepting deliveries. But that's working out just fine for us with the rate of respect. And we did this based on the education we learned last year as well. And so we're going to be focusing mostly on let's get RS01 and RS02 lit. And then let's continue installing. So the next three months are going to be about install, install, install. And Weitzfield is right on board with that. Siobhan? Do we have any sort of event or anything planned for when RS01 goes up? Yeah. I can answer that one. So as of right now, we are actually intentionally staggering our public facing communications just so that Weitzfield can in fact catch up regarding installations. They're working as fast as we can. But we do have site surveys also. Again, the more publicity, the more installs we have on our wait list. So the series or the cadence of communications right now is that we do have a press release ready to go for CL02. So that will be lined up in the next week. We have an event in Duxbury, which is separate. But again, it's public facing more so on the brand awareness. And as soon as the numbers kind of die down on our wait list for CL01 and CL02, then we will move on to a public facing event for RS01 and RS02. So yes, but again, intentionally staggering at this point. And to touch on materials. We have all the materials we need. There were a few things that we realized like metal risers and so forth. We have been working closely with Graybar trusted supplier to bring us the materials that we still need. And then there are, of course, the consumables that we don't know how many we're going to need until we're in the field. So we we're getting these lists as we go from the crews from warehousing. And for the most part, we have 400 miles minus some of the things that we still need as we learn it. And as we continue to see on the ground that we need something in particular. So materials are in excellent shape. David, Haley, you're on me, David. Do we have a cabinet from our field? Oh, yes, we do. Thanks. Everything we need from our field. We're going to chew that up after we see the materials for the cabinet. Go out for school. We'll count jumpers, the G ponds, stuff like that. My side optics. Great. Thank you. David Manix. Hey, Janiel on materials. Where do we stand with the outstanding invoices from 2023 in terms of payment? Is that buttoned up for last year? Everything that yes, we've we've buttoned up everything that we've been invoiced for. We've paid everything that has been delivered. As far as I know, there's been still outstanding. There might have been some long lead items, but that's not going to be delivered until this year. So for from an accounting standpoint, I know what you're asking about. You're asking just to close out the books, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I think you mean those anchors, Janiel, that were long lead times. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And David, we're really, we're really on top of all of our materials invoices as soon as they come in. We do pay that. Thank you. Great update. Thanks. If I might add to that though, David, on that thought. We we do have. A considerable lag, even though it's been getting better in construction invoices. But we have a talent for that. How much construction work has been performed? We haven't yet been in voice voice. Right. We keep your talent. We keep a tally of that. Great. Because they're, they're, they're quite tardy in their, in their billing. Thank you, Jerry. Yeah. That's by far the, that's by far the outstanding obligation, the largest outstanding obligation from 2020. You knew you want to keep going with a, well, it sounds like you did a lot of the operations, but if there's additional operations discussion, you want to bring up. Well, I feel, well, I feel about that. Unless Lucas wants to add something to any of the, the operations, construction or materials and warehousing. Yeah. That's by far the, that's by far the outstanding obligation, the largest outstanding obligation from 2023. You knew you want to keep going with, well, it sounds like you did a lot of the operations, but if there's additional operations discussion, that's by far the outstanding obligation, the part, that's the state of the warehousing. But I was thinking that might be a good time to jump back to Lori, Beth, I noticed she, she came on, but, but first I want to make sure that I'm not, I think Lucas had to step away, but yeah, why don't we, why don't we then go to, why don't we then go to Lori, Beth, if that's okay with you or actually, Let's make sure. I'll take that. construction and operations. Lucas, is there anything that you'd like to add that we haven't covered yet? I think we're pretty well covered. Hopefully good updates to come next meeting when hopefully we have that cabinet up and ready to go. Excellent. Lori Beth, we couldn't find you on the screen so we bypassed the treasurer's report but we did see that you had sent out information so we were hoping you would join us. Welcome. Thank you. Could you please provide the treasurer's report at this time? Okay, we did finally get all of the information I was able to go over at all for the month of November. And there's a balance sheet in the front showing you what the assets and liabilities are at this point and what the bank balance is. And then there's also a profit and loss for just November that shows you what was brought in and what went out for the month of November. And then there's a profit and loss that is a comparison for the year to date for November and it looks at the various income and expenses as to what this was year to date as well next to what part of it was November. There's also a profit and loss by class which shows which one of the various brackets that we've spent money in on the various funds and it shows you where it was spent down through for the month of November alone and then there is also one that shows the month of November with the profit, with the year to date figures in it. And there's also, at least I think there is where to go, there was also a sheet attached that showed the list of the vendors and what was spent for the various vendors during the month of November. And as usual, the last one is just a reflection of the catch up on the payroll, money going in, money going out each month. That last line just kind of evolves every single month. Lori, let me ask you a question. I know we had talked about and David, you can maybe chime in on this as well, David Manix. We had talked about presenting expenditures against the budget so that we can track as we move through the year, we can track where our expenditures are compared to what we had budgeted. Is that something that we can expect to see at the February meeting or might it be the March meeting? First of all, am I correct in what I just described and to when do you think we'll see that? Yeah, if I could, Lori, Beth, real quick, I did trade some emails with Bonnie this morning, great progress on loading the 24 plan into QuickBooks. And she actually has that done and I validated the numbers this afternoon. They tie to the approved numbers by category, category that were presented to the board. And we will expect to see, let's see, in February, January's results. But we do plan on sharing the 2024 plan in that meeting. So you can actually see what that looks like for the year. So we'll have a couple of updates for you. We'll finish out the year of 2023 in our next meeting and then we'll also share what that 2021 plan looks like going forward. That sounds great. I have two hands up. I have Linda and David Healy. Go ahead, Linda. Lori, Beth, are you sharing the documents, financial documents someplace on the shared drive? I have not. I can. That would be wonderful. I would like that. Thank you. Yeah, they were also emailed. I think yesterday was that Lori Beth, did you email that out to everyone? Yeah, just before I had to leave. So yes. And I got back this afternoon. So I wanted to get it out at least before this meeting. So that's why I emailed it to everybody that I could think of that is on this list. But I can automatically put it on the shared drive if that would be helpful. That would be great to have a running list of treasurer's reports. That would be perfect. David, go ahead, sir. You have a button problem this evening, this evening, David.  No, David, are we going to see a comparison with the 23 budget to expenditures? Let's see. I don't know. We don't have prior year in the report that she has, but it's not like we couldn't do that if it's something you want to see. What you're going to get out of the box is current month compared to current month's plan and then year-to-date versus year-to-date plan. We don't have prior year in or in. What exactly are you looking for with prior year? What are your thoughts on that, David? Well, I'd be curious to how close we came to the budget. Okay, I think, if you don't mind, David, knowing what comes out of QuickBooks, we can do that. The only catch is that 22 definitely did not have all the information, so 22 is not. But going into 24, we can do a comparison to 2023 as well. And that's something I can do on a monthly basis. Oh, good. Thank you, Lori. So we'll take that as a to-do, then. Yes. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you very much. Janiel, I think I'll pass it over to you for the marketing update and the Delegate Survey, whatever may be left from what Olivia had already presented. Yeah, actually, I'd like to speak to the marketing and to the Delegate Survey. So as you may recall, we sent over our year in update in December and we actually had really good results. We are deciding on sending our next update to our entire subscriber email list probably in April. We will have measurable metrics to share publicly regarding installation rates. We'll probably be at a really good spot with CL01 and CNN CL and CL02 and then RS01 and RS02, not too far behind. So the next email update will likely be issued in April. In terms of installation communications, we've been connecting with Weitzfield's customer service team in terms of the cadence for getting those installations up and running. So as of right now, it's three tries essentially. So there's a call and an email that is considered attempt number one, followed by attempt two and three to follow, follow, follow. And then they essentially go down the list in order to get those scheduled on a weekly basis. We are considering adding in a fourth attempt where we would be sending an email kind of as a final call. We really wanna get people up and running as quickly as possible and making sure that they don't go back to the list essentially. We understand some folks are seasonal, some folks don't answer phone calls so the email approach might be better. So we are really trying to find, find, to the communications process for installations. In terms of board recruitment, we have a post on our news page on our website. We are recruiting for 2024. We have a couple of vacancies for delegate seats. So if you are interested and you have anyone who is interested in joining, that'll be great. Please refer them to us. There is a process of getting a point and point by your select board. However, if anyone is interested or curious, please send them our way. And as I mentioned, we do an event in Duxbury. Duxbury's Have Your Say Day event is scheduled for this Saturday, January 13th from 9 a.m. to noon. So we will be making an appearance there. It is simply awareness at this point, but we are more than happy to join Henry at the event to show a friendly face in a Duxbury map, map, map with all of the locations that will be served by CV fiber. So we're really helping to help inform and expand our awareness for that event itself. And then I will move over to our survey. Our delegate survey is, I understand it, it's I think nine or 10 questions, but I have been filtering through all of the responses. They really help inform me in terms of your thoughts, your feedback, your skillsets, your bios, how we can start putting all the puzzle pieces. We have a wealth of information within this group itself. And I'm really trying to determine for the new year how we can maximize our skillsets and make sure that we're integrating everyone's feedback in terms of our strategy and an approach moving forward. So if you have some spare time and you haven't responded, please just click on that link. And if you don't have that link, I could forward it your way as well. So that is on the survey. And the last that I have is legislative day is coming up January 31st. And that is being done in conjunction with Vecuda. They are spearheading and on our end, we will be attending. If you would like to attend, I can certainly send that information as well. We are now aggregating a couple of testimonials to help present in terms of our expansive imprint in terms of educational opportunities, work opportunities, that sort of thing. So we're really hoping that this will be an event to help spread awareness and show our positive impact in all the work that we've done thus far, along with our sister's CUDs. Excellent. Thank you. Hardee, I see your hand is up. Go ahead, sir. Hi, Jerry. Thank you, Olivia. Do we have any legislative priorities? I can speak to that. We do, we do. So part of the budget adjustment act is returning $20 million to broadband that was reallocated to flood relief over the summer. And it looks like it's getting favorable reviews. We've submitted support letters through Vecuda and in favor of that. And I wrote to our representative over the weekend to make sure that he's on board with it. And it looks like it's going to be reallocated back to broadband. But in addition to that, we're working on aligning our interests with some of the already hot topic items that includes housing. So housing is a hot item right now. So we're looking to be recognized as an essential piece of housing because you can't really have, you can't really have housing without good high-speed internet. So we're looking to attach the other hot items rather than trying to say, hey, look, we're here and we're important by saying we're an essential utility that piggybacks with these other things that are already on your radar. So that's just a couple of things. We also are looking at ways to increase affordability within the state of Vermont working through policies with the broadband board. With the federal subsidies are at risk right now. So we're looking at ways to create a state version of the ACP program and other sorts of programs that will make internet more affordable while also recognizing the business model that is the CUD and the necessity of the long-term sustainability of the CUD, weighing that against affordable internet for all. So these are hot policy items that we're working on. When I meet with my legislator, is there anything in particular CB Fiber Library would like me to punch up in our conversation? Please do share. I represent a flood-impacted town. I'm not sure where my loyalties are going to fall with respect to that reallocation. But with respect to other priorities, do you have anything to recommend that I highlight when I meet with my legislator? Yeah, yes, I would emphasize the reallocation of the 20 million that was originally allocated to broadband and then taken away in order for flood relief and is now looking to be put back in because that was already earmarked for broadband. So that's an easier sell, plus it already looks like it's likely to be returned. And then in addition to that, I would focus on the, just that the CUD model works really well and to emphasize the work that you've seen, the progress that you've seen with CB Fiber as a delegate, I think it's an important piece to remind the legislators that the CUD model is a successful model. Thank you. Alan, I see your hand is up. Go ahead, please. And you're on mute, Alan. Sorry about that, I told the data. I think I saw an article in the Washington Post this week that the FCC commissioner was before Congress arguing that the ACP program needs to be re-adopted. Is that, I didn't realize, is the ACP program in danger of losing federal funds at this point? Yes, Alan, the ACP program is on a sunset and it's sunsetting this summer. So we don't know if it will be, if it will be continued after that point. Regardless of if it is or is not, we believe that Vermont should take a stand for affordable internet and that we can work together as a state to provide affordability support to all Vermonters, whether that's a similar to an ACP program or whether that's some sort of a relief or there are many possible ways to address this. But on a statewide level, we think it's important. Yes, the federal program is at risk. Great, thank you. R.D., your hand is up. I think that may be residual. I'm not sure. Do you wanna add to the conversation again? Okay, thank you. Thank you, thank you. Let's go into a funding update. First of all, we had a meeting in executive session with the VCBB, with the board. That was yesterday. Janiel did an excellent job in presenting and fielding questions and making our case to the VCBB that the CUD model is a successful model and that CD fiber is successful. Nonetheless, we have a grant with no contingency. We've had costs that escalate and as we have presented before and explained again yesterday to the VCBB, there simply aren't enough funds in our grant to connect all of the addresses in our grant application because those were basically done in $2021 and it's now 2024. And the money just simply doesn't stretch as far. The VCBB understands that now and they understand it better than they did previously. We will be back to them in February, presenting again. And our intention for all of this is to not lose the residual that they're holding 10% that is basically a completion payment. And we aren't going to be able to complete with the funds that are in the grant. So we are hoping to be able to get that money forward so that we can continue the construction that we are ready to do. Another option may simply be that when we do those DAs with borrowed funds that we would get the grant money at that time when they actually are completed even though it's not with grant money. All of this is up in the air. Nonetheless, this is stuff that we have built into our planning. So this is not something that has surprised us. We've been talking about the gap since, I don't know if it's been a year, it might be. So that's part of our funding update. The other update is that today is the closure of the time period for requests for proposals for our potential loan vehicles through PFM, our fiduciary. The last time I checked my email, I think we had at least two pretty solid systems, but a lot of that happens at the 11th hour. So there may be others. And certainly we're in no position to evaluate those yet. But it's an update that we have gotten responses and we're looking forward to evaluating those and moving forward with our lending and borrowing process. This was also part of the discussion yesterday with the VCBB. I think Janiel made the very important and very good point that we always knew that grant funding wouldn't be sufficient to build all of CV fiber, unfortunately. So the question was how much do we borrow and when do we need to borrow it? Bede is still not fully formed and it still appears that the appropriate, the appropriate for Bede funding is going to be 2025 to actually have funds to use at this point in time. Now there's a lot of work as David started our meeting today by saying Bede is critically important and it's going to take an effort on every CUD's part and the VCBB's part to get our fair share of those funds. But that the money itself won't be until farther into the future of the future and we're planning accordingly. Janiel, do you want to make any other comment on what's transpired in the past couple of days? Yeah, there's a lot. The Bede funding was allocated to the state of Vermont to the amount of $229 million. So now we have the tough job, Vermont has the tough job of figuring out who gets that money, the sub-recipients and that's where it's a competitive process that includes a requirement for a match of at least 25%. So just if CV fiber wants say, by way of example, 16 million, we would have to match 4 million in built assets and or some combination of other money. So this is a highly competitive process that is still being worked out and Bede has an element of accessibility, equity and affordability. That's a big part of why it exists. And so the affordability aspect of our product is really important. The accessibility of it is very important as we start to compete. So we're not losing sight of those things as we start to plan for the Bede funds. Even though it's gonna come in 2025, that planning starts now. Those challenges to the address list is gonna start, we think as early as 1.15. So we started a lot of the work already and there's a lot of work to be done. Siobhan. I just wanted to know, do we have an idea of, I mean, I'm sure we've got an idea of how much built assets we've got. Now and how much we hope to have by then. Well, we have a very good idea of how much built, we know exactly to the dollar, how much built assets we have. And we also, it's not just assets, but also in-kind services that we've provided. So I don't know if you would consider the design an asset or the design in in-kind service, but we have some combination of assets and in-kind services that will go towards our match. We're not exactly sure how that's going to play out yet. The rules have not been stated clearly and definitively as far as we know at the moment. And let me add one more thing that maybe is, I think it's obvious to those of us that are doing this all the time, but Bede is open to everyone. This isn't CUDs competing against CUDs. This is Bede is open to commercial carriers as well. So it's an open competition and we simply don't know how that is going to play out. But of course we will try to put our best foot forward. Jeremy Henson, go ahead, sir. So who at the State of Vermont actually makes that determination if we're going up against the Consolidated Phidium, whatever, or TDS or, I'm not so concerned about the other CUDs. Who actually, is it the VCBB that gets to make that decision about who are the sub-recipients then? It looks like that's gonna be the process, most likely VCBB is putting together or has started putting together the criteria and the volume of criteria that are going to be considered. So the VCBB has to be careful that they don't favor the CUD model, right? So they have to be relatively unbiased in their review and in putting together the criteria, the CUDs are pushing to have criteria that favor the CUD model, whereas CUD has to be careful and even adopting the criteria to make sure that the criteria itself is fair. Because all of this gets evaluated at the federal level and I can't remember the acronym for the telecommunication infrastructure. NTIA. I'm losing the acronym and the gentleman that is actually, he's a Rhode Islander, he's a Vermonter who was with the telecommunication in Vermont and now he is the gentleman that is helping make those decisions at the federal level. So everything has to be done to appease the federal criteria. Tom Fisher, I see your hand. Go ahead, sir. Yeah. So I had a quick question about part-off funds. I'd seen in the news headlines how Starlink had gotten there as revoked and there was others who likely who had also been into the ability ability. And so there was something like 2.8 out of the 9. something billion that is now in limbo. Does anybody have any idea of what may or may not happen with that? Is it potential that that money could eventually get reallocated or is that just gone? Well, so there's a couple of things here in the CD fiber territory where there are a number of art-off winners. And one of the, this is extremely interesting. The ARPA money that we're spending, spending right now, the Act 71 money ignores art-off. And we're actually building, have built in art-off areas where the art-off winner hasn't moved forward with construction. So we got there first. It was always in our plan and we built. Art-off areas, regardless of who the art-off winner or recipient is, they can, that's outside of bead. You can't spend bead funding in an art-off area. So that is a little bit problematic for the CUDs because they have to make their presentation for an art-off area, for a bead area, a potential funding area that moves around the art-off areas that are out there that may have been won by others. So I don't know directly, Tom, about what happens if money gets freed up, if it can be reallocated to the CUDs. I have really don't know about that, but we have all of these layers of rules that we need to match, achieve those criteria so that we can move forward with, especially the bead money as it comes down the pike. I apologize for not having the best answer for you there. Linda, go ahead, please. So do we have a specialist helping us with all these grant requirements? Indeed, we do. And we went through a competitive process to find someone that would help us. This was back when we were looking to go for ReConnect. And when we did the back of the envelope math, we realized that we were not going to be competitive with ReConnect. So we stopped moving forward with that, but those folks are a branch of NRTC that could be activated if we need them. We have PFM who are also specialists in this area and we also have Vicuda who is helping in this area and we also have VCBB who is trying to be a clearinghouse for potential grant funding information and potentially with their own contractor. Janiel, do you have more information on that? Yeah, just that we're working closely with Vicuda toward how we can work together to get a living specialist. We are working with, we actually, Vicuda has hired someone who's helping us guide us through some of that process. Yeah, so Linda, there's no intention of going at this alone because this is a specialized area we recognize that and they're subject matter experts we need to bring on board. I would like to segue finance manager contract unless anybody wants to continue talking about our funding. So I'm gonna give a brief description that I'm gonna make a motion and we can have lots of discussion if we need to. The finance manager is kind of the third leg of the stool that we felt was necessary last year in building our budget and looking at the organization chart and trying to understand what professional assistance CV fiber needs on a regular basis to move forward. And it was decided that we needed a finance manager and we weren't sure if it was a, we didn't think it was a full-time job. So the concept of finance manager wasn't necessarily an individual that would be hired. It could be a firm that would have a contract to provide these services. We kind of left it fluid so that we could go either way. And we've had the finance committee working on this and we had a working group that has been looking at this. And at the last executive committee meeting there was a motion that was passed to make a recommendation to the government. So allow me please to make this motion and then I'll open it up to discussion. Whereas CV fibers 2024 budget includes funding for the finance manager position whereas CV fiber advertised the position and received numerous inquiries whereas CV fiber authorized a working group to review and evaluate applicants and the working group has selected a preferred candidate that by the necessary service services within the budget allocation. Whereas the executive committee approved the motion to recommend to the governing board to execute a scope of work with the preferred candidate, batch holder and associates. I move that the governing board execute the scope of work with the preferred candidate, batch holder and associates. Second. Second. That was Jeremy Matt on the second and we spend a lot of time and effort, there's a lot of full-time equivalents went into figuring out how to do this and what our best position might be in this. Jeremy, go ahead. Would you mind pasting that in the chat so I can snag it for the minutes, please? Yeah, I'll email it to you as soon as we're done. It's actually the same motion that was in the minutes which is where I read it from with the addition of the lessons. Any other discussion? All right then. Are there any opposed to the motion? Are there any abstentions? Hearing none, the motion is passed. Thank you, thank you very much. This is an important step for us. I really look forward to working with batch holder on this. Linda, please go ahead. When does she start? Tomorrow. I will sign, I will execute the contract as soon as this meeting is over. She's late. Thank you. Janelle, since we've moved through that, can we talk about the human resources delegate training before we get to the revised personnel policy? Yeah, so this board agreed, adopted the recommendations of the HR group. And that is in part to provide HR training, human resources training to the board as a whole and then also to managers and leadership personnel with the fiber. So we are looking at two different trainings. One is a management targeted training that will be an in-person half day training in Barrie toward the end of February. And leadership, including chairs, vice chairs and personnel, staff of CV fiber will be attending that training. We'll go through things such as creative ways to run meetings, everyone feels included, ways to deal with bullying and harassment complaints within the workplace, within people who are working with you. And then, so that's the first, that's one training. And then the second training is going to be everyone on this or every board member will be invited to participate in the board-wide human resources training. And that will include all of the state and federal required trainings for folks who work within a, basically it's like employee training. And I asked our consultant how long they thought it would take and they thought it probably would only take 45 minutes to an hour. So it'll be all online, it'll be a teams meeting at some point probably next month or perhaps in March but this first quarter we'll get that training out and we'll do it, we'll record it and then it will be available to every person who joins as a member or a non-management level and level employee or staff going forward and then we'll reassess this every year. So just to make sure that the qualifications and requirements are still up to par, we also decided to include a broader training within that board training. So what is CV fiber about? What are our highlights? What are some key things that we want people to know? What does it mean to be a CV fiber board member? So we might double the length of the training. We might make it a couple hour training so that we can provide board information for what it means to be part of CV fiber practically, structurally and answer some of your questions and then also include the human resources component as we're recommended to do by our Human Resources Council. So those are the two separate trainings that you can anticipate seeing coming through as an invitation to board members as a team meeting to be held, to be held most likely the end of February or the beginning of March and then for management personnel and leadership roles within CV fiber that half-day training that'll take place in berry at the end of February. Thank you, Janiel. Additional discussion on our training, all right then. Alan, I'm going to turn this over to you to talk about our revised personnel policy. I just want to note that the executive committee approved the recommendation that this revised personnel policy will come to the governing board for final approval. So this has been through this week's executive committee, committee committee and I'll hand it over to Alan.  Yeah, thanks. I'll try not to say too much because we only have five minutes for this item and you might have a lot of questions. I did send out annotated copies of the original, the current personnel policy which the board approved back in July of last year, 2023. And an annotated copy of the revised personnel policy that the policy committee has been working, working, working on since September actually and has gotten a lot of help from Janiel and from our legal counsel. Almost every revision that we've made has been at the suggestion or the very strong recommendation from legal counsel that we need to have the policy constructed that way. So there are a lot of changes and I'm sure you've noticed even things have shifted about that, but it really, it really is a much more complete and understandable document I think now than what we had back in July. If you remember, we did pass a couple of sections and I mentioned that the cover note I sent out that we've already approved and we don't have to worry about those. But if anybody would like to ask any questions about any part of the revised policy that's the time to do it. Otherwise, I'm going to make a motion that we approve of this. In fact, let me make that motion now, to now, just so I have it. I'll move that the governing board approve adoption of the revised CV fiber personnel policy. Second. Seconded by Siobhan. Thank you. I do see David Manix has his hand up for you, Allen. I don't know if you can see all the hands. Yeah. Hey, Allen, we talked at the last meeting about documenting the training requirements for this policy on an ongoing manner. Was that going to be added to the document? Where are we going to document training requirements? We're going to document that in a series of rules that will follow with the adoption of the policy because that really is more an operational thing than it is a policy thing at this point. Okay. As long as it's documented, that's fine by me. Thank you. Yep. Thank you, David. Are there other questions for Allen? I don't see, I don't see any 10 hands. Nope, there's a hand. Chuck Burt, go, Chuck. I would just like to call attention for the broader board to a conversation that occurred at the executive committee about this policy. And that is that if you read through the details on it, you would see that there is no paid parental leave in this current policy. And apparently in committee that was discussed a fair amount. And while we all, I think that we believe we want to be able to do it, the situation is that financially we just don't believe we are able to do it just yet. I'd be happy to turn the floor over to somebody who is part of that conversation if they'd rather articulate it. But I did want to bring that up for the broader board just so everybody's aware that that conversation was also added to the executive committee. Chaniel, your hand, go ahead, please. Yeah, so I wanted to speak to that, Chuck. It is important to see the fiber to have a work environment that is pro family. And so what we did is I reached out to our insurance company and I asked them for quotes on long and short-term disability as well as life insurance policies. So we're hoping that we can fill the gap in that way. We're awaiting quotes. We've provided them the information I need to provide us quotes. Thank you for the clarification. Additional discussion. Chaniel, your hand's still up but I think that's just a residual. So, all right, let's do a vote. Are there any opposed to the motion? Any abstentions? Hearing none, the motion passes. The value and the crew that worked on this, thank you so much. You're welcome. There's a lot of work but it's worthwhile. Yes, indeed, yes, indeed. Okay, so let's move on to this officer election business. We've gotten some emails and we know that there are two folks that are interested in the chair. We've heard from Linda that they're interested. Allow me to ask, is there anyone else here that would like to be considered by the governing board to stand as their chair? Okay, so now I'm going to ask a procedural question because it was not clear to me. Do we need a motion that nominates candidates? In order to have a vote, that's a question. Jeremy Hansen, maybe your experience here, Allen, I had sent you an email but I don't think you saw it. It's not clear to me if we need a motion or not for a nomination. You're muted, Allen, or I can take this, whichever. Yeah, you're muted, Allen, we can't hear you. Okay, I don't have to hear you. And I just, you should be able to hear me now. Now you hear me. Mr. Is it that far away? Mr. Is it that far away? Come on, we're like XX1 district down here. I had a question, how can we proceed if we don't have if we don't have a vacancy in that position? You haven't turned in a resignation, have you, Jerry? I will as soon as we finish this, you know, have a vote and you know, that's what I would do. Okay, my intention was to not leave a gap without having a vote. But I'm open to what the appropriate procedures are. Jeremy, perhaps you can help us here. So the procedure would be, you would have to step down first, it would be okay and it would be procedurally probably wise for you to conduct the election as sort of the chair pro tem while the chair is being elected.  And then you would call for nominations. Nominations, if you want anyone cast a vote on the board, nominations do not have to be seconded. Once all the nominations have been put out there, then you can conduct the process whereby people can vote. And that can happen in several different ways. If we're abiding by Robert's rules, I don't remember. I don't think we have any sort of different processes in our procedures to change how nominations and elections work. So Robert's rules would have nominations followed by any number of different ways that the voting could go. We can do it by voice vote. Role call vote is probably the cleanest. You could do it by secret ballot if folks choose, if they wanna do that instead, which may require a little bit more logistics, but I could probably whip something up together if that ends up being the desired approach. Yeah, that should be, I think that covers most of the basis. Okay, one more thing before I go to a question. Uh, Jeremy, if I were to step down now at this moment, would we be able to proceed tonight? Yes, yes, you would be the, you could just act as the chair pro tem, the chair for the moment for the time and conduct the election until a new chair was elected. Should for whatever reason, the meeting was canceled because everybody has a roof, everybody's internet, internet dies. The chair at that moment would, by Robert's rules, would fall to the vice chair temporarily until the election could be properly conducted. Oh, Kido, Glinda, go ahead, please. And then we'll go to Allen. Do the candidates get a chance to speak after being nominated? The pleasure of the body. Allen, go ahead, sir. I just wanted to read this one sentence, and it's in the state statute about officers. It's a section 3067. It says upon the death, disability, resignation, or removal of the chair or vice chair, the board shall forthwith elect a successor to such vacant office until the next annual meeting. So one of the things we want to remember is that this term is for a relatively short period of time because our next annual meeting is in May, right Jeremy? It's May, not yet. Yeah, it's in May. Shubhan, Shubhan, go ahead, please. So this brings up the next question. If Jerry, there are still things that Jerry wants to see through to the end, like the funding RFP that's up in the air right now. And we were kind of hoping that Jerry would be able to go through February. Does that mean that Jerry wouldn't be able to do that? We can't... I don't know, Jerry's a pretty cool guy. He can do a lot of things. So you can delegate him the ability to do anything. I mean, the board would have to do that or the chair or whomever would have to assign that personally. But once Jerry steps down, he is in fact no longer the chair. And there's not really... But I am a delegate, I'll still be a delegate. Yes. Jerry, you're also a member of the finance committee as well, right? Yeah, I'm from a voting member, but I tend to show up pretty regularly. Jeremy, what would his status be on the finance committee if he resigns as chair? If he's a member of the finance committee ex officio, he's not a member of the finance committee because he's not in that office anymore. He could be, we could add an item to the agenda now to sort of clean that up. I don't think that would be controversial to sort of rejuggle the membership. They were chairs that want to serve on another committee as a delegate rather than as the chair. Right, right. Sorry for all of this confusion. I see Allen and R.D. Go ahead, Allen. You're on mute. Oh no, he's frozen. Oh, there he is. Yeah, so the mute's residual and so is the raised hand. Oh please, R.D., go ahead, sir. Jerry, it seems to tell we're unprepared to conduct this election. Is there a reason, is there any urgency to elect a new chair at this meeting or could we postpone that until February and rely on the executive committee to put together an electoral procedure? You know, that may be a good move. I mean, there is an urgency, but I also anticipated that I anticipated a transitionary period, especially with the, with being in the middle of working out the our loan interests with PFM. I figured that I would continue that one way or another because I'm just, you know, neck deep into it. Well, that's, I apologize. I tend to have things more settled when I bring them to a public meeting. So I do apologize. I can go either way. I do need the additional time. But we couldn't put it off until February if that's, if the board prefers that, but we have a whole list of people here. Henry and then Jeremy and then Siobhan, Jeremy Mack. Yeah, I mean, do we have all the delegates here?  I think it should probably be a ballot sent to the delegates or something. It shouldn't just be done by, you know, whoever showed up at the meeting. Well, it was on the agenda. So that's why we do have a quorum, Jeremy Mack. Nobody's left that I know of other than Michael. So I believe we still have a quorum. So we have Jeremy Mack and then Siobhan, and then we'll go back to Jeremy Hansen. Yeah, so the last I checked, we have exactly 11 members, which is exactly a quorum. So, I mean, I don't know. It seems like it's a warned item. So, and we've never voted for chair by anything other than, you know, some sort of a, you know, in a meeting, it's not like a ballot sent out to people. But what I really raised my hand for Jerry was I did check the finance committee membership and you are on the webpage. So your official, if it makes any difference. Yeah. No, that's fine. I knew I was gonna be changed when I became chair. Siobhan, Jeremy, Hansen. The website is gone, so that we're gonna go with that. I knew he was. So just a couple of points here. One, I'm gonna be gone the first week in February because I've got my retirement vacation scheduled. I've had it scheduled for six months now. And so this was an unanticipated thing that this election would come up. However, the reason Jerry is staring down is because he's burning the candle at all ends. And so Jerry is raring to go, willing to serve and will serve, but I think we need to take into account that he announced in December to the full board that was at the meeting, that he wanted to step down. He warned it for January for this meeting. It was on the warning. We have always like this. We have always been as unprepared for the procedures as we are right now. And I would really rather we didn't have an election while I'm out. So that, you know, and Jerry can continue the work. Jerry can still do all of that work. He just wouldn't be having the extra duties of having to do the minutes or having to do the what's that called agenda and things like that. I don't see any reason why we really especially need to wait because Jerry, I feel like it's a burden, unfair burden on Jerry when he's already given us plenty of warning and that this is gratitude for service. And we need to give him some relief and we need to be there for him as well. And I'll hush now. Thank you, Siobhan. So there's Jeremy, R.D. and then Linda. Go ahead, Jeremy Hansen. Sure. So Robert's rules doesn't really allow for balloting of the entire body when it's not in a meeting. So you're right, Siobhan. We are here. I'm not part of the meeting. I'm not a voting member right at present, but the 11 folks that are here constitute a quorum and are therefore acting as the body. So this is, there are several different ways that we can get together. We don't necessarily have to follow the rules but we can't do it outside of the meeting. It has to be done in a public space where we have public scrutiny and it has to be done should Jerry step down, it has to be done now. Okay, I'm still good with doing it now. R.D. Eno, go ahead, please. Thank you, Jerry. Jeremy, can you put together a Google form for voting this evening so that we can conduct a ballot and if so, will it take time? Do we have other agenda items that we can take up before voting? Sounded like Chuck volunteered himself that you could put something together in a Google form which is not ideal or secure, but yeah. Right, I'm sorry, I do see it was Chuck in the chat. Can that be done and if so, should we take up another agenda item before moving on to voting? I'll jump in here, Jerry, if you don't mind. That absolutely can be done and probably take me about five minutes. Frankly, I think we should give the people interested some time to talk about why they're interested and what their motivations are and I can absolutely with that together while they're doing that. Excellent, excellent idea. R.D. Chuck, thank you. I think that's gonna work for us. So, Chuck, if you could add that. Hopefully, is that something you would email to everyone and they would be able to quickly respond or would it be in the chat? I can put the link right here in the chat. Okay, fantastic. We'll just have to watch it because we'll have to kind of manually error check that somebody who's not officially part of quorum or voting tries to submit a vote or something like that. And so there are definitely some considerations of going down this path, but it is very fast and easy. I will also just pose the question while I'm here. Do we still maintain a quorum with 11 members if two of them have to recuse themselves because they are running? No, they don't have to recuse themselves. They don't have to recuse themselves. No, they are voting members of the board. They are, they can recuse themselves if they choose, but they probably shouldn't. Okay, so that would be a working quorum with no one recusing, choosing themselves. Okay. All right, go for it, Chuck. Jeremy, Jeremy, Matt, your turn. Go ahead, sir. Yeah, I was going to say the same thing as Chuck. And I see some things in teams that it would be best to send it to the board members. And I agree with that, that rather than put a link, it would be better to send it out directly to the voting members. If it would be helpful, Chuck, I could, well, actually, I need to put my quorum together and I will send out an email to the voting members that you can then reply to because I can get that from the attendance on the sheet. Sound good? That sounds fine. And I'll use that same list and then you can just put it. Excellent. So how about, if Chuck, you said you can do that in five minutes, what if we give you six and we give three minutes to each of our guests? Does that sound reasonable to folks? All right. Linda, oh wait, Tom Fisher. We should be limited to three minutes. I don't think we should be limited to three minutes, Jerry. Three and a half minutes then. I'm sorry.  You still need to nominate people? Oh, we do, okay. Well, that would be the first step wouldn't it, Jeremy? No, your stepping down from chair would be the first step. Nominating people would be the second. Okay, got it. So I'm gonna take from David Healy, put his hand back down, okay. So then I am stepping down as of 717 this evening. So we can move forward with a vote. Do we have any nominations?  You're on mute. Thank you. I'd like to nominate Linda Gravel to become the new chair of the Boyle. Very good. Is there a second? Second's not required. Second's not required, all the better. Okay. Any other nominations? Jeremy, Matt, I see your hand is up. Yeah, yeah, I know what Siobhan's interested. So I'd like to nominate Siobhan for chair of the Board. Okay, excellent. So we have a nomination for Siobhan. We have a nomination for Linda who does not want to see a time limit. So Linda, why don't you try to keep it brief and then we'll ask Siobhan to speak and by then I think Chuck will have everything ready. And I will go on mute. Go ahead, Linda. Thank you, Jerry. I have asked Chuck to put up my presentation and I'm going to close down my video because I'm having internet issues with uploading. Everyone pretty much knows me, I think. Linda Gravel, I am the Waterbury Delegate. I am also the vice chair operations committee, vice chair of communications committee and the vice chair of the finance committee. Last Saturday I sent out a resume. If you didn't get it, I sent it again this afternoon. It's probably going to your CV fiber email. Over the past week, I contacted the members of CV fiber who I've been working very closely with over the past two and a half years. Those who really know me, I invited the members of the committee and the staff to do one-on-one Zoom meetings to discuss three questions and a survey. Ten people accepted my invitation. The questions I asked are, what are the duties of the chair? What skills are needed to be an effective chair? And how do you perceive Linda's skills for the job? Here's what the CV fiber membership and the staff told me. The top qualities of the CV fiber chair and I gave them eight to select from were communications, delegation and accountability. The top personal attributes they want to see in the chair and I gave them eight to select from is reliable, active listener and trustworthy. The top personal attributes in Linda that they chose were reliable, active listener and intelligent. The next thing I did is I looked at leadership qualities on the internet, especially in regards to aggressive or assertive. The attributes that I found that were most identified and were reliable, reliable, confident, intelligent and trustworthy. The attributes identified as assertive were confident, insistent, decisive and forceful. The top attributes that the survey came up with that identified for me was confident, insistent and decisive. It's important for me to understand the expectations of the chair. It is important for me to understand how people perceive me as a leader or as their chair. My strategy, if elected as chair is to actively listen to our leadership to define the vision and strategy and to delegate the implementation to the staff. I am asking for your vote and support for the CV fiber chair and the governing board. Thank you. Did I get under three minutes? You did good. Perfect. You must have practiced that. You were spot on three minutes. Thank you. Thank you, Linda. Very well done. Siobhan, would you like to take some time? Sure. I don't have a presentation. I wasn't expecting to do a presentation. I've been on this board since 2018. I sent out an email earlier, few days ago about that. I've been on, originally I was on all the committees but I paired that back because it was conflicting with work. I'm retiring now and looking for more challenges. I tend to work on trying to build consensus rather than trying to focus on what I think is right. I'm willing to be mistaken. I'm willing to have a reason to argument change my mind. I'm actually a pretty good listener most of the time. I'm a little bit nervous because I don't do this very often. I have, you can probably count on two hands the number of meetings of anything related to this that I've missed in the last five years. I am here for this organization and I will be here. I guess I just wasn't expecting such a I have to say much about myself, I guess. I'm not really used to that. I've worked closely with the staff as vice chair. I helped write the personnel policy. I've been, I've run several of the meetings as vice chair. I've been vice chair for, since Jeremy was chair. I understand as much as your usual person understands the public meeting laws and I have a pretty good idea how to run the meetings most of the time. And I just want us to graduate from a completely volunteer led organization into a staff run organization where the board advises and guides and gives policies and direction but the staff are empowered to do their jobs because they're the professional experts that have been hired to do their jobs. I guess that's all I've got to say. Thanks. Thank you, Siobhan. That was well said. Thank you. Tom Fisher, you have your hand up, sir. Go ahead. I was wondering if I could ask a quick question of both in that if you were to not win the chair or chair would either of you be willing to serve as vice? Both of you, whoever wants to go first. Yes, I'm willing to serve as vice. I am not, I am not being nominated and I will not accept the nomination for vice chair. So we got a positive response from Siobhan, a negative response on that from Linda. Tom, did that get to your question? Sounds like it did. Yep. Okay. David Manix, go ahead, sir. I'm afraid you're on mute, David, try again. Jux, would you both resign your vice chair positions on committees with us become vacant that we would need to fill or how are you thinking about your response to the other committees? I will probably still be attending all the committees just as I am now. So if people feel that I should resign vice chair of these committees and we can find others to step up, I would certainly do that. I'm not currently vice chair on any committees. Okay, thank you. I wanna know, Jeremy Hansen Rowe has major network issues and he wants to offer a comment. Oh, please do, Jeremy. Are you doing this in the chat then? Should we be looking at the chat? Maybe I can connect. I was in the process of calling in, but maybe a network will be up low. You seem to have dropped it. Yeah, it's spotty, Jeremy. Yeah. If you wanna send a chat, maybe Janiel can read it for you or something like that. I think he said he was gonna try to call in. Try again, Jeremy, because I can see you moving. I'm gonna get a sentence through and I'm gonna type it in chat. Okay, Jeremy, thank you.  Janiel, would you do me the favor of reading Jeremy Hansen's chat to all of us? Yes, I will. When it comes through, I'll read it. Fantastic, thank you. Maybe if he turns off his video, he will have better network connection. My Starlink is literally dropping in and out. So, here, all right, so am I connected long enough? I'll just read this. So I'll say, if I was a voting member, I would vote tonight. Classic, classic, not a thing. Exactly why we need CV fiber, right? Yeah. That's why the FCC get rid of Starlink is our job. That's right. Indeed. Jeremy says, if I was a voting member, I would vote tonight for Siobhan. I asked her to serve as vice chair and could definitely see her as a valuable continuity from where we started in 2018. I hope I will support her. I have some endorsements also if you're allowing endorsements. I have an endorsement also. Sure. Janiel, would you like to read it? Yeah, I think it was sent to you. It was sent to me. Christopher Shank supports Linda Gravel as chair of this governing board. Very good. Okay, let's see, David Healy, go ahead, sir. Yeah, I'm supporting them for a lot of reasons. I mean, one of them is she's so intimate with the ongoing functions of CV fiber. And this is sort of a critical year for understanding, it's sort of a transitional year from going from the board to a managed staff-run organization. And there's a lot of details that take a long time for somebody who hasn't been intimate with them to catch up and Linda does know all of it. That's why I'm voting for her. Thank you, David.  So I didn't get a chance to weigh in much ahead of time about what I see in a candidate, but some things that I see as being very important are being able to keep meetings on track, not get sidetracked, be down to the needs. And to keep meetings on track in a way that doesn't, that's not offensive to people to say like, okay, we need to move on now. I think Jerry does a really, really good job of doing that. And I guess I'd be interested in hearing from both Linda and Siobhan about how you see your skills in that area and how you might approach that sort of a situation is we need to keep meetings on this on this on time. I can speak to that. For three years, I was a Democratic County Chair and I ran meetings, monthly meetings. I've done a lot of this type of thing in the past. I think it's very important to give everybody a chance to speak. Inclusion is very important to me during the meeting. I think I was the one that recommended to Janelle that the management have a section in the upcoming training about how to run a meeting. I think that's a very important job, but probably not the most important job for the chair. My response is I've run several of them and we've come in on time or under. I think when David was out for a month, I ran the meetings for the operations committee. So I think we both had experienced running meetings. I think a lot of you have been at the meetings that I was running. Very good. Thank you. Chuck, what's our status? Is Chuck frozen? I like, I like. I'm going to drop next. It's heading my way. No, it actually, I mean, the storm is out there, so. Yeah. Starlink is absolutely off right now. Huh? Yeah. Okay. Well, Jeremy was going, excuse me, Chuck was going to email us. How? I mean, I'm not sure we can even do a voice vote when our folks are stuck. Hi everyone, this is Chuck. I am back on this, so I can send around the link. If we still have a quorum from the rest of the body. Yes, please, please send that to us. Chuck, we'll be keeping, keeping track of the quorum. Jeremy, Matt, go ahead. I just want to say that I did, I really, I really are miscounted. I think we actually have a couple extra members as a buffer. One thing that we can do is we can count the number of people that I sent it to and make sure that we get that number of responses as a way to validate the voting results. Well, it looks like you sent it to 14 people, Jeremy, if I'm doing my counting correctly. That's what I got as well. Okay, as long as they're all voting for good. I have just hit send on the email. Thanks to Starlink. It may take a moment or two before the connection goes through, but it should be arriving in your email shortly. Thank you. Thank you, Chuck. I believe it was actually 13 addresses. Jerry's listed twice. Oh, okay. Am I? Good catch, thank you. And it's by town, right? It's not by delegates here, it's by town. It's by governing board members. All of the alternates, their primary members are here. So like David Mannix, John Hossford, Jeremy Hansen and David Wendt, the primary members for those towns are all present. So I went off of the governing board delegates who are present. Yeah, it just came through. All right. Okay, here we go. Suggestion, it might make sense for everybody to raise their hand in teams until they have cast their ballots, at which point there should be zero hands remaining up by taking them down. So at the moment it looks like there are three folks that have not yet submitted their vote. Two folks. Alan, it looks like you're the last one according to this that hasn't voted. That's funny, because I... Am I? The vote that I got essentially... Lower your hand. Lower your hand if you voted, Alan. I did vote. Okay. Then you can lower your hand unless you want to make a statement. Now, wait a minute. This is like a whole form. I voted strange. Yeah, Alan, I have not seen your vote come through FYI. Okay, hold on a second. I think it's because Alan replied all instead of clicking the link on the Google Form. Yeah, I didn't get the Google Form, you're right. Look on the link. Okay, that should go in. All right, put your hand down, Alan. I will do that. Thank you for your patience, everybody. I really apologize for not having this set up more smoothly. Okay, okay. Is our clerk counting? Is Chuck counting? Who's counting? I can't count because Chuck set up the Google Form. Okay. You ought to be able to see it yourself in a moment if the internet is working. But I would like to congratulate Siobhan for winning the ballot. Well done, very good. Whoa, okay. I would like to congratulate Siobhan also. Thank you, thank you. Wow, okay. All right, now you can you lose sleep. Yeah, thanks. That felt like a grandmother's curse, Jerry.  No, very good. I don't want to be the process guy here. I don't want to be the process guy here, but there is a vacancy in the seat of vice chair. Yes, indeed. So we're opening the floor denominations for the seat of vice chair. That's my takeover, right? You can Siobhan, go for it. Yeah, yeah, I'll take it. Oh yeah, Siobhan, you're chair, so you're running the meeting now. It's my meeting now. Artie, go ahead. I'm just reminded of Nelson Rockefeller when, when he was appointed vice president. Oh my God. He said, they asked him how he felt about it. He said, I never wanted to be vice president. Anybody who wants to be vice chair. How about you, RID? No, good God, not yet. I'm still in the middle of budget and flood mitigation. Oh, geez. I think, um, can we sustain a vacancy in device, in device chair?  I was hoping I would not have to throw my head in. I will serve if that is at the, what the board would prefer. I do have a full time job and two young children. And it'll be tough, but if that's what the board of like, I'd be happy to serve. Hey, I nominate Tom Fisher. Okay. Ted Barnett. Oh, I was just going to say, someone has nominated themselves or thrown their hat in the ring. Um, I was, that's great. Um, I have limited time because I'm still at work and it's snowing. So I'd like to get home. Um, like since Tom graciously put his hat in the ring, then maybe we have an answer to, to my particular quandary. Okay. Do we have any more nominations? If you need to leave, Ted, we do have enough for a quorum, even if you leave. So safe, don't stick around here and get in a car accident. Okay. I'm not seeing any more nominations for the vice chair position. So that means Tom wins. So what you would say, you say, Siobhan, is that you, you would instruct the clerk to cast one vote. I instruct the clerk to cast one vote for Tom Fisher, for vice chair on behalf of the body. You are, you are making the assumption that there are no. Nose or extensions. Oh, you're right. I did. I did. Are there any. Nope. Nope. No. Oh, no, that's Robert. That's the right procedure. Okay. Because there's only one candidate. You just. Oh, right. Right. I mean. It's not a motion. It's a vote. Okay. If anybody would like to speak up and, and, you know, take the spot from me because they feel strongly that I should not be vice president or vice chair, you know, Tom, Tom, the position will be up again in May. So, so you can do a bad job and then we'll get rid of you in May. That's, that's my plan is to know. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. You're right. Tom. So, away, away, run away. Okay. Blah, blah, blah, blah. That's the end of that's the end of the thing.  There's no other business. The. The agenda is done. I'm going to address a journey. I move, I move. We adjourn. You have to move. We are going to move to the next meeting. We're moving to our next meeting. The next meeting we're going to move to is serving Tom. Oh, David. Yeah. I just want Jerry. You're still on the finance committee. Right. Yes. Jerry is still on the finance committee. We're getting kind of skinny on the finance committee. I would like to thank Jerry for all the hard work he has done as chair. Absolutely. Thank you. Absolutely. All right, I choose to fill. Janiel, would you please? My internet is dying, so I'm gonna hop off. Good night, everyone, see you later. Okay, I'm gonna stop the recording now. Just one thing I wanna get in while Janiel's still on. Could you send the batch holder scope of work to Siobhan, please? Yes, I will. Thank you. That's good. And Janiel to anyone else on the Finance Committee, please. And the meeting is closed now at 7.45. I'm gonna stop the recording.


2023 elections comes with a lot of innovations and a new voters of demography. Right from 1999, since the return of democracy, these elections seem to be a paradigm shift from what we used to know as a nation, as a people. For the first time, we'll have an election that is giving us a thought for a thought front in the form of another candidate that is different from the two major contenders we used to know before. And that candidate is coming with a new phase to the elections. One good thing about the 2023 election is that we'll have a chunk of new sets of voters. If some analysts have even postulated that the 2023 election will be determined by the youth. And to lead previous to this, the new voters register shows that about 12 million voters have been added to the existing voters register. And most of these new voters are majorly under 30s, which they are majorly used. One good thing we will notice is that in this year elections, new things are coming in. And for us as a people and as a nation, we must understand that this year election tends to provide a new paradigm shift from what we used to know in our election experience. So we are calling on all political actors to play by the rule. They should make sure that unguarded statement that can eat off the already tense quality should be avoided. Their followers should also be very guarded in what they say and how they regard. And one thing we should notice is that we all have a nation to live in as the winners as we need a nation to govern. Also the runners-up also need a nation to live in. So one thing every Nigerian should notice is that on 2023, for whoever will win the election, must remember that Nigeria must win. The last line. Thank you so much Suleiman for that. The last line says Nigeria must win. So whichever way. And they say politics is a game, right? But of course, it's very important for us to realize after we finish playing the game, we must be very conscious of who we want to win. Do we want some political leaders to win in terms of trying to bring in their own self-driven policies, you know, for their pockets? But if Nigeria loses because, I mean, it's possible for the person that is going to come into win, but Nigeria will lose. And we must ensure that whoever comes in, it doesn't matter who comes in, we must win. And Nigeria winning means that the economy goes forward, means that other sectors are working, means that people don't have to think about relocating. People have to start thinking about penetration, which is how can I take my idea from Nigeria to Ukraine? How can I take my idea from Nigeria to Moscow, you know, to Japan? And not the idea of how can I escape from this place called hell, right, because things are not working. So Nigeria winning for me means that everything that is not working right now, as it were, we begin to work. Political candidates should use every opportunity to educate, enlighten and sensitize the masses on their various manifestos and various plans for the country, rather than focusing on hatred, hate speech, and bitter form of campaigning amongst themselves. We have a very immature system. The people, it's incredibly immature. Go on. You're looking for, this is disturbing to me, to see men, you know, people at this level behaving, grandfathers behaving, it's like what is going on, you know.  You say, Nigeria must win. Win what? Nigeria has lost already. This is the worst. This is the worst we have been in, maybe since, this is the worst. This has never been this bad. This is the worst it has been. It's never been this bad. So I think we may have lost the last battle.  So maybe we're going to win subsequent battles from now. You know, but like you said, the key really is, if we do not win this battle that's coming up in the next dispensation, man, we might not, we might, not that we're done, we're done for good. We might get to come back, we might get to like, you know, get another chance. But how much longer do we have to wait? See how long we waited this time around? See how long, see how long it takes to kill, to get. It's incredible. Country is a mess. I think, I think, you know, just on the lighter note, even if we lose the World Cup, it's not as important as losing the seat of power, we Nigerians. So if we lost, the faith just go, we didn't lose the World Cup. We lost, we can't be, okay, no, we should be more concerned about we Nigerians winning the seat of power. Win Nigerians winning the seat of power in that sort of, we're putting someone that we knew will spearhead us in the right way that we can worry about winning the World Cup. That's because you're right, man. But really, I'd like to push you back to Suleiman. Suleiman, if you'll see you there with us, some message, ask a question. What do you want us to win? Maybe you want to throw in lights. Do you have a strategy for us to win? And what does winning mean for you as a Nigerian? Okay. Thank you. What do you mean by Nigerian most ministers? You see, that's all right. It is only going to be nice to say that we don't have challenges. We have a lot of numerous challenges we are going through as a people and as a nation. As we said in one of our advocacy, the past weeks, one thing you look at is this, from 2023, one thing is that politicians are here to win elections. And we really feel the ground of bad leadership is every Nigerians you want to be with, you know. So now, good roads, good electricity, the basic infrastructures of life to think of can only be enjoyed in an atmosphere of peace. So I would be not focusing that whatever you do, politicians must not eat up the quality to the essence that the peace we enjoy as a people and as a nation will all be gone. So what I mean by Nigerian must win is that we must make sure all political actors, that is the politicians themselves, their supporters and all the stakeholders as far as election is concerned, must put the interests of Nigerians at heart. Nigerian winning means that Nigerians must make sure that there must not be all post-election violence. People must not lose their lives. People must not also lose their lives. That is what I mean by Nigerian must win. Wherever we win the election, so be it. That is the winner should be magnanimous in victory while also the loser should look at the outcomes and the yannies of people. So that is what I mean by Nigerian must win. Nigerian must remain one and Nigerian must be safe. If we do that, it means Nigerians win. Interesting. Beautiful. Yeah, I mean, I think that's fair enough. That's fair enough. I just do hope that our politicians pretty much understand, you know, what do they call it in football again? Sportsmanship. I mean, understand that that you lost the election doesn't mean that you lost the country. You know, I think there's something that Jimmy said many years ago. I mean, Jimmy had constantly come out, you know, for the leadership ticket and there was a certain year I'd forgotten the year that he didn't win anything. So what are you going to do, Jimmy said? Well, I would just, you know, be in the background, keep supporting, keep contributing to the development of Lagos State. And there are many things to do pretty much. So it's not, you don't, again, it saddles me or it's, it's opposed my heart to, to see that people only believe that they can make a change becoming the president. Right.  There's an opportunity for you to serve with the person who is now going to become the president. And how do you even if it's your political even if it's your political adversary, I think that's the conversation we're not ready for that. But anyway, so it's important for every Nigerian out there to realize that we must win and collectively winning begins with you getting what it requires for you to perform your most civic responsibility. And I'm asking you, have you got in your voter's card? Are you going to vote in the coming elections? If you don't have it, it's a good time to make out time, but deliberate being intentional about winning in 2023. We've saved the best for the last and the final lap is coming on. Just after the break, we're going to have the phenomenal Elijah Felix and he's going to be talking about sustenance and decorum in the governance. And of course, the politicking and how sustainability is going to become a political choice and not a technical one. So join us after the break.


I'm gonna say, well, I mean, it is different because, like you said, just biologically men and women are different. I do acknowledge that. Okay, well, I'm safe, Paige. Yeah, but at the same time, again, that's just a really thick ball of yarn that needs to be untangled in work through, but...  I want to keep it real with you. I want to live better, eat better. I want to love better, sleep better. Yeah, I want to feel so aligned. I think when it comes to sports, that's just something that they have to consider now because I think more people are comfortable with being who they are.  And so I don't know, maybe it just is going to take some, like a lot of things that are changing and a lot of ideas that are shifting. It might just take some adjusting. I don't know. Like, I don't know how that will work. But I think the problem... It's more complicated than is it fair because it's just like... No, I agree. But I think the problem is if, for instance, if Joanna... Have you ever watched Joanna Man? A long time ago. Okay, so Joanna Man was a guy who was pretending to be a woman because he got kicked out of the NBA. So he went to the WNBA. So if what Joanna Man happened, he would be the highest-played WNBA player. And that would take money, potential endorsement deals away from the Candace Parkers and the other girls and Brittany Griners and things like that. Is that fair? Again, I'm not in the sports world. No, just hypothetically. Just because of that. That's like... I don't think there's a... Because sports is about performance. You get paid based on your performance. I don't think you can say if it's fair. I just think it's going to take some adjusting. Like, the people who... Nobody makes the game, but the people who control, you know, what's going on, like the higher-ups, like... There needs to be some adjustments and... I don't know, figure out how that quite works and how it quite fits in. But I don't think it's fair to not let those people play. What would be their... So your first point, you said the higher-ups should make adjustment. What would be their incentive? To make adjustments? Like you said, what was it? You said the UFC fighter was breaking people's goals. People are dying or getting seriously hurt. I would think there would be some kind of... No, but you're saying the adjustment should be more inclusive, not exclusive. Yeah, just trying to figure out how we quite navigate this. And honestly, I don't know how they quite navigate it. Like, I don't know. I don't know, because I don't think it's fair to not include those people. Like, I feel like they should be included. And they should... Even if the consequences women's goals being broken?  It's not a little. A little bit, I'm gonna say a little bit. And so you can't just say, like, oh, that person can't play. Like, nah, that's why I say that. I don't know what adjustments. I mean, if there was a trans league, I'd be with you. But the idea of more... But then it's not inclusive, right? You're kind of putting them over there by themselves. Yeah. Because if they keep fighting y'all, they're gonna keep breaking your skulls. So we have two options. We have two options. We either have inclusion or more women's skulls broken. What's the thing? What's the third option? I really don't know. And again, this is just a metaphor. Even the sports thing is just a metaphor for the larger conversation. I don't know. But I do think they should be allowed to play. So I don't know how that's gonna work and how that's gonna fit and how everybody can just coexist and do their thing. So your daughter's a wrestler. And you find out that next week she has to wrestle the state champion who was born a boy as a parent. You okay with that? I hopefully have confidence in my daughter's abilities, what she's doing. And I mean, there's probably gonna be a conversation about it. But yeah, go out there and do your thing. Would you not let your daughter wrestle? Would you tell her, you would tell her she couldn't do it?  You would tell her she couldn't do it? Absolutely. The world. I box. Okay. I've been punched by a very, very skilled woman. I've been punched by a not-so-skilled man. Not the same? Mm. It's not the same. Okay. It's not the same. Now if that state champion is just a girl who's a little bit more muscular than the average bear, that's different, right? Like Serena Williams or something like that. But if that girl, because the thing that we downplay is the bone structure density is different. It is fundamentally different. So I wouldn't subject my daughter to that danger. Okay. But you would. First of all, I don't have any kids. So my imaginary kids aren't being subjected to anything. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. That's tough. Yeah, that's a tough. I think it's simple. I think it's slam dunk. I don't think it's simple.  No, but I think it's, and I think it's not that we're trying to just exclude people for the sake of exclusion. I think if you have a certain number of DUIs, you should be able to drive. I think it shouldn't make sense, right? I think exclusion for the sake of the greater good, the greater safety, and in that realm specifically in the sports room, because men aren't worried about a girl who transition to a boy stepping on a football field. Come on. Or the basketball court, you know what I'm saying? We're not worried about that because we understand it's still in our favor. But with our daughters, that is a danger. And not even just the physical ramifications, but also like I said, that 300-pound man who decides he identifies as a woman comes in and breaks all the female world records. And I've been, I was the, I'm a girl. I was a world record holder. I trained my entire life. I sacrificed blood, sweat, and tears. And this guy, because he suffers from gender dysmorphia, trained for two weeks, came in and killed me. Is that fair to women? I don't think it's dysmorphia. I think it's just wanting to be who you are. And again, there's limited amount of time that we are given. I think you need to just do your thing, be happy, and whatever realm that is. But as far as like sports goes, I don't know, I don't know how to solve that. Navigate that. I think we need to live, you know, the best possible life we can and be happy, but not at the consequence of other people. But how is it a consequence of other people?  But that is something that I feel like, again, adjustments that I don't know. That's not my realm. I don't know. I think that's something that can be altered, fixed, worked out. Other than that, is there any more consequences? Well, I think the consequences build on each other. I think, you know, whether it's the physical consequence of that girl potentially being hurt, or the emotional consequence of, damn, I trained all my life and somebody with an unfair biological advantage came in and shattered everything I've worked for. And those can lead to, what if that former world record holder is now an alcoholic? Because they're like, life is messed up. Like, what was the point of me doing all that work? So I think we have to have more foresight than just let this person live their best life. But I'm not gonna say accountability, because the things that we do grow through do affect us. And trauma or whatever does affect us. But I don't think we can solely blame her theoretical person having an alcohol problem. Oh, it's his fault, like that's the reason why she can. So I mean, as far as like that goes, she's an adult that made those decisions and she's not trying to actively help herself and she's not taking steps. So I don't know if we can just say like, oh, this is gonna lead to these people going down the wrong roads. At the end of the day, we all have choices to make. I agree, however, I think like I'm a psychology nerd. So I'm all about cause and effect. And the reality of psychology is that a lot of the things we do, a lot of the ways we think about the world, a lot of our vices, a lot of our problems are a consequence of something that happened to us when we couldn't defend ourselves, whether physically or emotionally, right? So I try to think past, just let them figure it out. I try to empathize a little bit. So for that girl who worked her ass off to be really, really good at this thing, the best female in the world or in her calendar year in school, whatever the case may be, to be upstaged by somebody with a biological advantage, I empathize with that. And I empathize with some of the potential consequences. I'm not saying that she should blame the transgender person. I'm saying that we as a society have a responsibility to make sure those things don't happen. That's the same reason why if somebody's found using steroids, they're disqualified from whatever they were participating in. And a man coming into a female sport is pretty much the equivalent of that. You have an unfair advantage. And you've acknowledged that, right? I wanna say, well, I mean, it is different cause like you said, biologically men and women are different. I do acknowledge that. Okay, wanna say a page? Yeah, but at the same time, again, that's just a really thick ball of yarn that needs to be untangled in work through. But I don't think it's fair to just exclude those people. Okay, so we don't have to unravel it cause I don't know how much time you have, but what do you think would be the first step to approaching that unraveling? Maybe talking to the people who are transgender in those sports. We talking to them. Maybe even seeing if they want to be in a week of their own. Cause I mean, that's solely affecting them. Maybe having a conversation with them. Should we talk to the women? Talk to everybody. Maybe is there a dialogue going on or is it just something that's happening? Are people talking? There is no dialogue because you can't talk about it. It's like, cause we're in a very inclusive zeitgeist right now, so you can't talk. So is there controversy over transgender people competing in this sport? Yeah, but nobody's talking about it. Yes, cause you say anything about that.  Nobody's talking about it. But people are lashing out and they're mad about it and there's... Yeah, like parents, for instance. Like parents are like, I don't want my daughter competing against a dude. Even people like Joe Rogan, for instance. He's a MMA commenter. He's like, don't do this to these women. I know these women. Do not subject them to this type of violence. Cause again, ultimately, and this is where I think we don't give men enough credit, men are saying that y'all are gonna get hurt if you just live and let live. Because it doesn't directly affect men outside of, oh, I hollered at a girl that I thought was a girl but it wasn't really a girl. But like on the sports field, it's y'all who are gonna be affected. So I think the conversation starts with y'all. I think the conversation starts with people who are involved. In that world. Yeah, in that world. I think they need to be talking about it. And okay, so apathetically they say, okay, we wanna still play against women. And the women say, we don't wanna play against women who used to be men. What happens? What's the tiebreaker? I don't know. They don't have to figure that out. They don't have to sit in that conference room and talk and figure out what is the meat in the middle. Again, that's not my space. That's not my area of expertise. I know nothing about sports. And regardless of if I'm a woman, I'm not playing the sport. I'm not playing the sport against a transgender person. So I can't give my opinion. They need to do this, man. I don't know. I think it's gonna take those people in those spaces to sit down and have conversations and figure out if there is problems, if there is controversy, if there's people who have issues with it. Those people need to come and they need to talk and they need to work it out. Those people in those spaces. Well, I strongly believe in community. So even if I'm not directly in the space, it affects me some type of way. For instance, children and things like that. So I think everybody needs to talk more honestly. And that's part of the goal of this, encouraging people to talk.


NSF now requires a data management plan to be part of every grant proposal. And what they want to know or what types of data are you going to be collecting and what kind of physical collections, what kind of software are you going to generate and things of that sort. So they want to know in the data management plan what kind of data you're going to be obtaining. Secondly, what standards are used for the data and the metadata that you gather and what's the format going to be for these data. And they want to know what policies you will have for access of the data. For most data sets, the data will be just entirely available to the public. However, you can imagine circumstances where data have names associated with them or health records or something of that sort, which really can't be made available to the general public. Certain aspects of the data can be, but not. They can't be linked back to individuals and things of that sort. And they want to know what will be your policies for sharing the data and giving access to the public for these data and what are the policies for reusing the data, redistributing the data and production of derivatives from the data and things of that sort. And how are you going to archive the data or your research samples or the photographs you take through the electron microscope or whatever means you are gathering your data. And how are you going to preserve these data in a way that will be accessible into the future?