stand Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation indivisible andice for all can I borrow your for just remember okay so roll call all right okay and do you need that paper back write exactly all right Bruce blatner present Darlene present Jerry bco here C I always call CLE I'm sorry and by the way thank you so much for the for your whole family for the parade was that it's like I know her Marie we know is absent uh Mike thank you Johanna here Jimmy here thank you Danielle because he's here Pat here okay all right official I have a motion to approve the minutes of the January meeting all right all in favor all all right so we have Bruce and Ja okay all right uh update Mr hman so we're going to have actually three updates we're going to make them quick so every uh meeting I'll have a update leis will have an update on the programs and Deb will have an update on the Library resources and programs for children and programs for I for hope everybody's okay with that we're going to do that every every month um in terms terms of my update I'd like to talk about uh facilities and strategic planning in terms of facilities uh the windows as you saw the email that I sent to everyone were being told the beginning of April uh we have a meeting in about a week a pre-conference to talk about you know how we're going to um organize everything in terms of the windows I know I've told you before the idea is to go kind of one window at a time and Hope we can get one done in a day the good news with it being late is we won't be dealing with as much bad weather let's hope right cold weather um in terms of I know some of you were frustrated in terms of how long this has taken and that they uh when the engineers called the contractors and contractors called Pella um you know there were times where we had to call multiple times to get an answer from them but um you know it is what it is at this point and um I'm just trusting that it will it will be they will be here shortly and uh both the contractor and the engineer feel confident based on their their conversations with with pet so I'm hoping that we can have nice windows we actually had plastic up one window here that blew off today because of the wind I had DPW looking at it so I think it's a sign that it was it was it was the Plex glass we heard crash so I said that I would come back to you with a plan in terms of how we can get out to the public other than our P other than the windows the delays are fabrication right I'm sorry the delays have been associated with fabrication is that correct that's correct and then you mentioned Eightfold dat is that when they expect to get the windows so we were looking at a May second week of May start I was told that the beginning of April first week of April for all the windows rather than coming in April yeah right and I was I was told that it would it's usually a month after that yeah so yeah yes sir um I'm hoping everybody here would want to come when I think it's going to be pretty impressive taking those large windows out I mean I'm sure Mike knows how that works but I've never seen anything like that so yeah to that um anything else on the Windows um yes on what you said uh about the windows being taken out can you like maybe email us when you get a definite date you know so that you know first day not around during the day but maybe I can break off and see yep see the birth history of the new Windows video it should be historic yeah it should be when I started in 11 as the superintendent I remember you were already talking about being frustrated that that was in 11 one we have any administrators yeah yeah so uh happy I wish it would have happened sooner I did tell you I would get it done in a year and I didn't I apologize but at least it's happening so um in terms of strategic planning I I went to the town and asked what type of mailings they've done in the in the past to all of the residents talked to a few political organizations and how they did certain thing with registered voters and whatnot um the cost for three it's about 3,000 homes is what the town is is telling me and if we just did a card to all 3,000 we're talking about probably about 3,000 $3,000 maybe a little bit more than that and then when you look at the percentage of responses that you get it's extremely low I don't think that that's the and especially where you're going to have people that are not here until the summertime the percentage of homes so it's actually the percentage compared to other towns I've looked into I think it would be even lower I personally think that we should extend the time to get data we should find when there are events when there are a lot of Belmar residents we are taking responses from Lake Como but we're concentrating on on Belmar and and the the the patrons now the patrons that are outside of the town we have their emails you know but that that we can continuously talk to them when they're at events and things like that when they're checking out books um you know continuously sending out emails but my concern was how do we get to the other residents that we don't have emails to uh or that don't come to the library you know I'm just kind of opening it up for discussion you think it's worth $3 to $4,000 for postcards that you get I've been told anywhere from you know 1 to 5% uh response rate if you're looking for some type of response I I could that's what I've been told um so I could uh give a little information on that being on the first aid Squad and the fire department one we sent out you know for our fund Drive you're you're right you know as far as we had the same situation with uh with Summer residents as such and uh getting uh you know even the people had the boats down there which doesn't affect us but uh yeah it it it's it's expensive uh but uh and the percentage of returns was low although over the years we picked up you know first a now it's disolve with with the fire department because I'm on that committee with the fund drive and stuff so it has picked up you know substantially but uh you're you're right there with summer homes summer residents and stuff like that we could be can we can we go to some of the events that have a lot of family Easter egg hunt is this weekend I think there's skate park fundraiser is end of the month a couple we could have the sheets make sure and we walk around and hand them out um the problem is it still doesn't get to the people that are not I don't know would they be responding anyway I I'm pretty it looks great that we're sending out the postcard that we're trying our best best to get everyone's opinion that's the good thing the bad thing is that it's expensive to get a very small response and I'm asking is it worth it to to spend that money to show that we're trying to get to everyone I don't think it is I was to say I face for a lot of man hours that we could put somebody out doing something else that could be more actively engaging because it just sends it and gets thrown away and it's just it's a one and done in a s it's not like ongoing either where you could build up to that it's not it's not worth it I'm not going to see it either when you to be to also go to these events a lot of times there's going to be some staff members going so the payroll involved to cover to go to these events to hand out the Flyers and speak on it you know uh that would be an added expense on top of the 3,000 you're better off not spending 3,000 and yeah better that's better use of the money do that you talked about um contacting some of the other organizations in town and finding out how they reach people was there anybody who was willing to or had a meiling going out that we could piggy back on and work with uh no I I didn't ask that question uh in terms of the town if there's something going on oh I did I actually did talk to Kelly is there's something going out soon that we could stick in there and she said no um but I could ask again I could talk to her again maybe I could talk to John and and I don't know Jerry if you know of anything that's going out even even if there just a comment on the the newsletter why don't you just do door hangers well that's what I was just going to put on I did it for three years I can't be done we've walked a lot yeah you can just you know just get them printed just put them on and you know you hit every door and there's no there's only the expense of the printing at that point rather than any Postage and you know that it gets to every house everybody ready to get their steps in well I'll tell you a funny story which I know is a little side note but I know like uh years ago we had a male lady who unfortunately was um I'll just say mold and so I ran a GoFundMe for her because I knew that she was going to be out of work for a time period and so I wanted to make sure that everyone on her route was going to be getting the notice so I wasn't affecting anyone else just her route I will tell you it took three days to do her route just mentioning that three days for me to do her route and it's because it was stairs because there's so many there's so many houses in this area that have several steps to go up several steps to go down so for me it took three days she did it in the day I don't know don't know how but I'd be willing to to walk and do my route at least okay so uh instead of waiting for the next meeting I'll get a price on door hangers what it would look like and I'll send it out to everybody by email does that sound good and and we're kind to do a a virtual uh vote kind of idea and and um you know if you could also talk to some other organizations that might be willing to help us with large groups because I do know you know when it's with the school it's easy parent you have so many parents I'm sorry put this flyer up on our local Facebook groups you'll get almost everyone I'll do it okay great we have three groups too at least three yeah we they're already up on those groups yeah and we have our Facebook and use yours as well yeah that's that's that's where I got it but as it gets closer great yeah okay all right does everybody agree with that yes sure okay is there anything sorry Jerry is there anything that could be put on the town website about it oh yeah absolutely is it on there we have a link to the a link to it is what about the um the the call is that you want that just for emergencies like the email mov away from making calls about tree is up stuff like that okay and the email when you send out emails would that be possible or is that again you're kind of trying to keep it that's usually through nixel that they send emails out to okay yeah or text message I don't think I don't know that we have I'd have to find out about the text message I that's all generally with the emergency yeah notifications yeah I mean we can add it to our newsletter at school as well I think probably one of the best places to do our and I did call the principal at St Rose as well she so okay we we have 50 responses already to the to the survey we only have a couple that responded to the email we thought there might be someone that wants to kind of write us a note so we you know created that bmar uh Library listen this Gmail we've only received a few uh there but we've received about 50 responses on the uh survey so that's pretty good for what it's been about a week what's the goal what what what number yeah what are you shooting for in terms of response yeah I to to be honest with you I haven't really set the goal yet because I I I don't think we have enough like for example example the numbers that we have in terms of card holders some of them are so old that I'm not sure um I haven't really said that yet and I I should have but I didn't and um because I really don't know what data that we have that's accurate I mean I know I was looking at the census stuff today for another reason yeah I know at the top of my head I don't know if it's like 2,300 households or 2 200 households in in the town so I was told you know would that be like the max obviously you're not going to get every household Leslie uh what's um I think she wanted to see what the initial influx was going to be right away and then kind of gauge as time went on how many she could kind of come up to a point where she thinks this is how much we're going to wind up getting in the end you know extrapolating but the more we're out there the more that increases but she didn't come up with an expectation either yet yeah yeah so so I'm thinking I mean a 10% you might think that's low but 300 responses is really good you know what I mean that's what I was that say anything over 200 they say for every 10 that you send out you may get one response you know every 10 yeah if you're lucky so um but we my as long as the board is okay with us looking at the numbers and extend instead of having a drop dead date one of the things I'm going to offer up to everyone too is is actually just phone calls so what they would do is call and Leslie will call them back and take verbally you know answer it for them um that we have the meetings coming up we have someone that will be speaking Spanish also at at the meetings um and we have some large events coming up the soda bread um I wanted to at least stay uh keep taking um the survey or the data um till the pat rat concert when we have 500 people here surve with a slice of pizza we should have QR codes everywhere that you want a second slice bring bring us to fill out surve we'll grab a neighbor might make them fill is it possible to have a couple of iPads at the soda BRS so that they can do the survey right there don't have do we have can you have a code to to a Google form can just scan it we already have that we already have Blaster that everywhere yeah Blaster that everywhere I think since you have a captive audience coming up on Thursday maybe just get some The Voice C come out they can put a big you know code and walk around will we will have uh some attendees that are not probably at soda bread that are a comfortable QR so it would be nice to have maybe Chromebooks there with it set up already to the survey and just have what do you think around the outside where they can do it yeah we do that painful way do a paper survey for people who uncomfortable with technology and then just have St have St all right we'll do so and then any other events the only thing I want to you know for example the parade wouldn't be appropriate because you have so many people from outside you want to kind of if you have any ideas on events that have a good percentage and maybe how was it taken at the Women's Club Le well we had a lot of verb but I wish we had more of those little cards remember I was talking about like an input card where people could just quickly it's just like the size of an index card just check off you know did you enjoy this would you come again what else would you suggest you know what other you know well those are for the individual event right well yeah you don't want that for a strategic plan though yeah yeah you want it to be more General well we could like a future events we'll have because of the survey is actually quite simple yeah surve just print surve out and just have cop surve fill it out now turn it you know they don't have to put the name on it want put on the Facebook pages that you have here it's already there the QR code is code is already on there it's on the form it's on I can make a bigger version of it so like how you get people to do things that you face to face of hey I need your help do something for me and they're like oh and then they feel like they have here's a don't have a pen we have 20 I have a clip board and a pen don't have glasses too okay so that will be that will be the plan um and I'll look into the uh door and send you a price from the printer and then we'll start taking volunteers set up volunteer walk days right what would we do would we do it any day so we just give them a street they can do it whenever they want it doesn't have to do it all together just give them together out yeah okay all right all right uh next Deb would you like to sure um email down I don't know if anybody got a chance to look at it just took what are those in the middle there are those more copies sure everyone down there got got it got it um's got it I I'll give you a couple of seconds just to look it over because I I don't want to just but if you have any specific questions someone sent me questions that I didn't questions comments oh okay um it was interesting though because it PE my interest too were you the one that said about how compares to yeah I didn't wonder about that yeah it's kind of interesting when we about how many one of the questions or comments that came up was how many titles do we have in the collection and uh how does it compare to say Bradley Avon you know Spring Lake I I didn't get but what I found interesting was um I find that the stats that are out there have got to be in inaccurate ours were inaccurate uh so when they say when you started here they were oh yeah right if you go this some what site that puts together this information about local libraries and it look and you look it up and it tells you they say we have 23,000 which is certainly not true but they say the same thing about Bradley and appon the only one that I would say that I would take is probably legit is Neptune is at about 25,000 that one I know is pretty pretty accurate but as far as the others I can't imagine where Adon is put 5000 it can't be so I I would guess we're all in a very similar range um at one point when I the first time I ran a report just to see what what it was at in the in the system it came out to over 13,000 which I did not think was acate at all because booking around just didn't look like we fit 13 and it was not accurate there's a lot of books that were lost a lot of books that were not in the system so right now we're down to somewhere in the 9,000 plus range 10,000 to me is very comfortable in that room upstairs you can push it but you're going to lose what's great about this the library is the space that you want to save you know you don't want books smash uh more is not better you know less is better in this uh circumstance so maintaining it around there I think is the best way to hand and I think we're better suited to do that because most of our books are uh come through a lease program we lease them and for us that works because we're not going to hold books for years and years and years because there's no room for them so we can get whatever is new whatever's popular whatever we think we need and then get rid of things that are no longer popular so that makes sense for us so and it's been going well if you go and you look upstairs we're still um we still have work to do it's never done it's like when you're renovating your house and you're like we going to have a party now because to my house but no wait let me do this first let me do that first and the library is never done anyway it's a constant evolving thing so but but we're in a good place we're in a really good place and if you um got a chance to look the two areas of concentration um were to create a Spanish bilingual collection which we've done a lot for we're up to we're probably over close to 500 books now some have not come in yet um that was one of the priorities and the other priority um was just like a pet project of mine a a College and Career section where um intended for kids you know 8th grade high school but adults look at that as well test prep things like that that so those were the two areas that I spent a lot of time and effort on and they they're coming along so now we have to do another shift because we need more room but um the room we had some extra shelving put in which is great because the more the better but um but it's it's in a good place I think right now great and uh we were talking about having uh scheduling some open houses for sometime next month finalize a couple of dates just uh maybe an afternoon maybe an evening maybe an after school weekend depending on how we work it out we have parents could come in with their children um adults could come in we could just kind of show them where things are at what's new that they may not have seen before and uh I think that would be uh a good thing especially to kind of introduce the Spanish section which has really been pretty popular with adults as well it's intended for kids but most of the books are literally bilingual they are in English and Spanish uh some of them are really they they're called upside Downs you read the book this way it's English you turn it around the other way and it's Spanish so uh we've had some parents who've come in to get those because their children are learning English much more quickly than they are and so they help each other so it's been it's been good that way so I'm happy about that and related we have um I introduced in your email Jazelle who is our intern from the uh charter school she's wonderful she's been so helpful she does she has learned so much and done so much and now she's going to lead a bing story time so we're GNA kick that off on April 5th it's a Friday afternoon she's going to work with Joyce who does uh fills in for story time sometimes on Monday and Wednesday so she and Joyce are going to work together and they're going to read in English and Spanish have little craft you know little activity for them and we scheduled it purposefully for 12:30 in the afternoon uh figuring the parents who have kids to pick up at 2 o'clock the uh prease they can come here first and then go over to school and pick up the kids April 5th I believe we're closed the school school's closed we we saw that uh but we decided not to change it to give it a slower roll out whoever's around who's not away for the for the Easter break or sure who's just home we whoever's around will come and then starting the next week it'll be for the parents that are picking up kids at school yeah we set the date first and then realize school's closed but you said you know what let's keep it and we'll see how we How We Do With It Well you might get a good sense of if people are bringing their pre- kits too yes to that and then you might might and then see what the attendance looks like yes moving forward and if you means you need to move to 230 right that's what I figured we could kind of SL those people were really interested figured out we've had a couple of um uh Spanish-speaking families who stopped by and had the flyer in their hand so there is interest out there and um so I I think it I think it'll be a fun thing and gizelle's great she's very sweet and she's looking forward she's very excited she's comes in now and she's preparing what she did I said listen figure out what you want to read and then we'll take it from there so what she's doing is she's sitting pulling the books that she wants to use and matching up a craft that kind of like a first one I think we have The Very Hungry Caterpillar in Spanish and so they're going to make caterpillars you know so she's trying to match something to go with each book that she's choosing and uh we're also hoping we don't we want it really to be bilingual we want the English speaking kids as well so that they can kind of learn from each other and I think it would be a lot of fun I think it'll be good but that's the latest I don't know if anybody had any other questions about what was on there um there was the part about the uh books that we have we still have to come to some kind of decision about those rare books because um if they stay the way they are they won't be valuable anymore you know we don't have the right um way to maintain do you want us to there probably an organization right do you want us to bring to you what we could get for the books and then you decide or would that be so then you have a a decision based on the money and then maybe I don't know who could be honest with us you know how long you wait and how it he appreciates I I don't know um do you think is there an organization there's a couple that we could look into and um the the question is even sending them somewhere could be an issue because some of them are really they're you know they they're almost to the point where you know you go like this and then the pages just crumble um and there are a couple that are older that everybody decided we're not getting rid of these These are staying you know because they're just classic books children a couple of children's books that will'll keep but the really older ones we we should find out what we can do with them maybe there's an organization that comes to us so we don't have to sh that might be like yeah okay we'll look into that so is that sport like that idea okay we start out with a list of the titles just a sentence or two about their significance we can educate ourselves regarding the the content I think it's more of a finding a better home for than it is a revenue driver right absolutely yeah I was thinking you know maybe there's an opportunity to you know if there if there needs to be a little bit of money invested in keeping those old older books that we really love that the sale of these books helps to make sure that these are in good shape and if they need to be looked at by somebody yeah or if you want to have a case some kind of case I don't know maybe there's an opportunity there the Historical Society also has information how best to protect well they yeah they they took a bunch of books from we sent them a list and they actually came and took some and looked through them and kept some for their AR not the ones that they have a to preserve things there I you know I didn't even ask but they seemed like they knew what they were doing with them and ruers took few she remember a couple feet of water in that building during Hurricane Sandy but um yeah so I guess that's it unless anybody has any specific questions they want me to address you could you quickly share the story about the book that got returned oh that was great that was uh Donna was working and uh the mail came and there in the book was a copy of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil which was a great book by the way if you haven't read it and then it inspires you to go to Savannah so don't readit it unless you're ready to go to Savannah but um comes back we open it up and she's reading the the thing and it's the book's been gone for 25 years and some and it came from Spain wow okay so Donna took a real interest in this book and she contacted the person who sent it and got back this very lovely letter where he was explaining that he worked here as an intern when he was in high school the foreign exchange where they would come down and they would get them jobs and they would work here for the Summers and he used to love to come to the library to sit and read the books to help him with his English and uh he took out this book and then the job ended here in Belmore and they sent him I think it was to Great Adventure or somewhere else and uh he still had the book and then he went through I'm telling you it was a long beautiful letter everywhere that book had been with him across Europe and one day he was moving again and he found the book and he said I'm going to send it back so he did so we thought it was such a great story that we all decided we were going to send it back to him and let him keep it as memory of his time here so Donna got the address and everything and wrote him back another note that we were so enamored by his story that we wanted him to have the book so we just you no far that should have was been sent back like a $35,000 Farm that's what I asked for no good de goes on I'm telling you but I I said it should be a movie this is like a lifetime or a whole up right they got written they got in the paper the sisters of the Traveling Pants yeah that's right right exactly but what a story it was really really very heartwarming so we enjoyed that any questions for dead Okay L you're on programs okay everyone got my roster that I sent out um U uh had a chance to look at everyone's missing one give you a copy on okay so the roster I sent out is is an entire list of all the planned events that we have for this year okay um there's a whole bunch of them as you can see and um uh they also include roughly what months they're going to be in and the estimate estimated costs for them all now that includes all these the um the uh the um summer concert series The live animal series The U all our author times and uh uh other uh events that we had including the living history presentations that we did the past month or so uh also includes all our cultural events as well um so far this year anything you see in red has already occurred um just about all of our events have gone off very well the living history Series has been very very popular and very well received you've had four events and each one one of them packed this room down here of about 40 people each time and each time at the end uh it was a lot of great feedback from the attendees how much they they really enjoyed it to the point where I'm considering for next year when we when we have these again uh we'll probably move into this Taylor Pavilion because it was getting kind of tight here so I will just put in my two cents that I did attend one of them um the woman that did Harriet Tubman she spoke for an 65 minutes straight no no script anything did a couple little costume changes in front of us changed her voice for every single character it was it was amazing like and she does six other characters she does Bessie Coleman she does madam CJ Walker so I was just like we we got to get we got to get more of these because it was just wonderful it really really was yeah everyone told me that they really enjoy interacting with the characters as if they were really the people they were impersonating you know and they stayed and did q&as afterwards which was so she was here an hour and a half everyone I don't know I think three out of the four have traveled through bad weather I so badly one came in snow she came in the pouring rain yeah and I don't remember what the other gentleman came uh Martin Luther King came by train and uh one of the patrons was concerned whether they would figure out how to get here from the train station so she left with her grandchilden went met the guy at the train station and walked him down here make sure he got your own time which is really really good and he was the Martin Luther King guy and he he told me that one of the he told the group that one of the challenges he faces that many people start asking him questions as if he's Martin Luther King and how Martin Luther King would handle the problems they're dealing with right now so that that's how well they did in terms of portraying their characters Teddy Teddy roselt was very good too I have to say I really enjoyed seeing him um so uh we're definitely looking forward to have again I'll have a probably a different mix of characters we do have one more living history character coming in for um in April for uh National poetry month that'll be Edgar alen Poe uh so I'm looking forward to happen to I'm a bit of a PO fan myself um so we have coming up the Irish Celebration and soda bread contest as of now the standard white category is closed out at 20 contestants and we have uh 14 contestant in the brown bread category hopefully a couple more by the time registration closes out at 7 o'clock tonight um well we have four judges lined up for them we have Chris brandle uh we have uh Kate Heath of sweet te we have uh Robin um and I forgot her last name but of Robin's Nest and we got uh Terrence Mill of hogo will be the judges uh for Ev and I have the uh the uh trophies are sitting over there in the box ready to go and uh the r prizes will be here soon and then we have the uh round the house band going to be performing for us and as well as the uh Step dancers from the Darcy School of Irish Dance and wall and they'll have like 15 to 20 dancers so they always come and do a great show for us as well uh we're we have a um um and we're going to be suffering a bit of a embarrassment of riches when it comes to authors for author time partly because we have we're hosting this um author uh local author book fair in April at Taylor Pavilion where 30 officers of the from the region will be presenting their books and people can come and meet them and you know they can buy their books there it'll be a televion but um a lot of those authors will be having their individual author times here at the library and we'll be scheduling about like two other times a month um the next two coming up are uh we have Mike farer uh the uh perfect for St Patrick because his books are like 50 shades of green and this is your brain on sham rocks my eyes went like this he's a he's a he's a humorist and talks about what it's like to be uh uh uh Irish in in America Irish Catholic and guilty is what he's talking about uh which is going be good and then we have a really wonderful one coming up Zach Levy uh he'll be a little later on this month he is a young High School senior who in during his junior year spent a year going from food pantries to homeless shelters learning all about what is what it is to be homeless in America and he wrote a book outlining what he's found how he experienc and talk and he's going to come talk about his book and talk about what makes someone homeless and he's going to go beyond just the the last straw that broke the camels back to Sentimental hom this I'll actually be talking about how they grew up what what factors in their lives um set them on a path to ending up homeless at some point and there and apparently there is something to that aspect of it so he's going to be talking about that so I'm really excited about that um he's very excited to do this too I you can see so um uh that's coming up this month right there um I wanted to share with you as I was in preparing for the annual survey um I do have a couple of numbers for you for programs last year last year total programming including all children's events all exercise classes everything we had a total of 46 six programs um and that was an increase of 129 from the previous year in that uh total attendance across all programs was 10,427 that was an increase of 7,100 people because the previous year we only had a 3,300 so um the the huge increase in exercise classes is what's Driven the bulk of that um plus story time has also increased uh its attendance quite a bit also um so basically to break that down really uh 365 of those events were here at the library only 96 were at Taylor Pavilion um 3,800 people attended the Library events while 2,700 went to Taylor um so uh that's roughly uh what the the Topline numbers for attendance program attendance stuff last year was uh and uh as you can see we have a a great roster events coming up uh I'm looking forward to uh see a great lineup of these robs does anybody have any questions or suggestions ideas you send me those figures yes can I get one sure thank with the um with the classes that we have taking place at the Pavilion could we have some of the postcards or are they there already I've already been given I've been uh on Tuesdays and Fridays but you know what you're right I'll I'll talk to Barry I'll get that started tomorrow with everyone it's pretty common in terms of the people that come Tuesday but CH yoga is on one day is like 60 some people there it's probably a lot that don't come to even Healthy Steps so I I'll get on that and if they want to take one for a friend that comes or whatever that can and that's defitely one of the messages wanted to like say to ask people to invite them to tell their friends and especially people who don't use a library right no I'm just talking about the Strategic plan paper that's what I'm trying to get we know they're coming for the classes we know they're coming just got to get those papers out yeah we did we increased um the strength and balance class that was Tuesday afternoons now it's Friday afternoons also but it won't happen every Friday because if there's some type of event on the weekend we have to get out of there by 11 o' for things to get set up but so now Tuesdays and Fridays if you ever want to come down and visit on there from like 9:30 to 1 so um but it's they're very very happy with not having to pay the residents and the quality of our instructors I got to tell you they really are top notch um if you come to the classes um so that's also been uh a common theme from a lot of comments to me is that they're very happy with the quality of the programs soall instructors the actors uh people holding uh you know holding the Medicare class that Medicare information class has been doing very good and uh Story Time very very well received with Story Time the parents are absolutely loving it uh the bubbles are a killer the the bub kids just the bubbles you know um uh but uh but yeah I I think we one of the things I hope that we'll show in the in the results of the survey is that uh they really like the quality of the pro out and you have a new one that started on Thursday the knitting and yes knitting and crochet is back yes we have another uh we have another uh uh instructor for that and we had a nice start seven new people in there so which is great yeah you were there you saw uh sewing is going pretty good so far that's been a steady uh if a if smaller uh group but a steady group and that kind of fluctuates some days I come in and there's like five or six of them and other days are three or four it depends um but it's but it's steady um and uh and uh we've supported them pretty good they have everything they need to do what they got to do and and uh they're happy to so okay any questions for Lis all right thank you all right I have just a couple of things to bring up um I'm still in contact with Natalie Gallagher because I wanted to get the wording for the memorial clock so I spoke with her today and actually texted her today and she's still working on it so sold her less words or important meaningful words but you know it only has so many spaces to put in so uh she knows that if by chance you could give me an idea I know you did um Sharon's plaque out there did they usually tell you how many characters it could have in terms of what can go on a on a plaque well uh it depends on the size of the plaque but I think that's a variable so whatever we want really the yeah we give give R the same it'll be fine I'll I'll look at just so I'll bring it over to um what's the name uh kefir yeah and say how many words you know how many how many characters can have just so I can have her when she's working on the wording okay um I thought of this today after Dave and I were looking at the plexiglass on the outside of the window there that was flapping in the wind and we were like oh no well you know it shattered right well it was shortly after we had talked about it so I was like oh gosh well I'm glad that no one got hurt that's that's the best part but I'm wondering if we could share the calendar that you have of upcoming events with DPW like I know you you usually tell them in advance when we're having like Pat r on the outside or something if maybe they saw it for the entire year would that be more helpful for them to know which days they need to have something done so the calendar to to Billy yeah just I think it could be helpful for him or them I should say've done that in the past but you know what um I'll make sure that happens I was just thinking it's a nice way of everyone it's just that not all these events have been populated on the calendar because not all the dates have been set right right right and there's some things that you don't need exterior work on we need you know we already have the dates pretty much we can get him access the calendar so he can view it as it as upd just look at it that way they're not saying oh you're just telling me now say no I told you back in March and um I I guess we just talked about this already since we know that we're going to have a large group at the Irish soda event um and I know I mentioned that maybe we could just have some small little input cards as to thumbs up thumbs down you know whatever is going to be the easiest way for us to know do we continue now I know C bread is definite if if someone gives us a good idea to make it better that's all absolutely you like those are that's going to be event specific cards I think they could be General you just hand them out for every and then maybe code them at the top you know maybe different colors like okay green for St Patrick's Day okay right so that you know that that's the one that's generated for this particular one if it's maybe the historical ones they could have I don't know Antiquated old paper you know but something so that you know event feedback feedback exactly is there any way that we could wait though until we're done with the Strategic yeah because I'm worried if we ask for too much we really want to push strategic plan and then once that's done then we'll have that for each event so I don't I don't have to go crazy trying to get this St no we we just have to have the QR stuff and everything and the people anything I guess we can open up I have the treasures report sorry well I miss the January meeting so I have the December numbers and then um I have the January numbers I just don't have February numbers because um lorine is out was out so as soon as she comes back I'll have them so if you want do you want me to share the dec well see how the end the year ended and then in January okay so in December our budget amount was $786,000 120 um spend to date was $493,500 ,11 61 so between the spent to date and waiting to pay the vendor was a total of $25,300 amount is $482,500 and that's a partial budget again that's there's a lot more actually Bas on the estimated yeah all right anything else public we want to do new business bus general question on the budget we we talk about the budget specifically based just on the mill and we project our operating costs over the next year here do we feel as though we would have enough capacity to absorb the entire window budget the entire window contract within our 2024 no budget yes wasn't a large amount put can reserve yes yeah yes okay that's fine y but he asking it be able to be covered within the budget it's very similar we had 260 left and it's it's we're thinking about 230 right for the windows and it's going to be uh we actually have an increase in our budget amount of about 880,000 that goes up because of the mill so um it's probably the spending will be uh will be similar and but we'll be spending that 230 um all right new okay new business just for uh the thought uh we have our financial statement has to be done in April so that everybody knows April it has to be done for the burrow as me members of the board so just for future reference to do our finan has been sent out yet no no no no I'm just saying we'll probably have one meeting prior to you know even April gets it out in April 15 is a Monday just in case you needed to know that time I thought it was do usually from the end of wasn't it oh I might be thinking T day yeah usually by April 30 by the end of April yes you're right all that from all the boards and stuff right and also please continue to put in some professional hours I don't have anyone's anything for this year I did send last year's to Dave so and I just enter that into the annual service perfect thank you could I bring some thing up in new business um so normally at this meeting we usually wait until the increase for the town and see what the town uh gets and uh Jerry if I'm correct it was about 2% for the employees 2% per contract it's around there so average when you consider everyone and so I'm asking the board if you would consider that as an increase for uh for our staff 2% across the the board um most of our um new employees started about 20 $20 per hour and the the library assistant that have been here for um for some of them 10 years are about $22 and what we always do is we go by the document by the uh New Jersey library which kind of says the the lowest amount that you should offer and that's um that you base that on mine as well and on librarian for Deb as well and usually it's anywhere from 2 to 4% um it was higher in terms of their recommendation but I'm making the recommendation based upon what the town did instead of that organization so just asking I don't know if have a disc question if you want to you need any more data I could bring it to the to the next meeting but I'm just asking normally you know 2% because that's what the average was for the other employees question um are there reviews done as far as you know I know there's increases but do are we doing any type of annual reviews for and basing their their percentage on that no I haven't done that you know in terms of giving different percentages to different people based on their evaluation well that not I mean the 2% fine but I'm saying as far as are we doing reviews annually has anybody been reviewed I don't think anybody has not for this year yeah so I I can come back um that's something that that hasn't been done in you know in a long time yeah in fact could find um even you know data from that um but that's something I can you know make sure that I can give to you for the for the previous year um did you want to make the percentages based upon their evaluations or I don't think the town does that um yeah um I think it's more of establishing a more formalized HR program within the organization and I think joh brought it up now but I don't think your intent is to tie it to compensation at this time but nonetheless when we talk about compensation we talk about people continuing to be productive members of the organization and we should move toward affording them feedback as to whether or not uh we feel that they're being producted or whether or not they feel that they're being proded okay and it shouldn't be just you know every year it's 2% regard I mean you know because if you're reviewing people they may not get the 2% or whatever percentage you know I mean because you want to make sure that people are performing at you know a standard level or above standard level and not below stand I don't think we have anybody like that but there should be we need to put those systems in place and going forward you know so like for next year we should have reviews well I actually you know there's no reason why at the next meeting I can't give a a form to you in terms so it's something I did look into and most of libraries did not have that or they were very general the evaluation system uh almost you know so what I'll do is I'll modify what I researched and bring it to you at the next meeting and you can you can vote on it in terms of if you know this is this is the uh the form that will be used and I think Leslie had a form that she used when she was in real because I remember telling me an instance where you know there was a question and they weren't sure how to proceed but once they looked at here's the checklist of what should be done and if it's not done then these are the options okay I'll have it for you at the next meeting I don't think the nature of the staff responsibility is that the questions would be very general in nature you know um and also I would personally Envision it more as a tool of Engagement you know um to make sure disc Eng supervisor direct report dialogue going to see that they're on the same page so that anosy doesn't build up on one side or the other if someone's not performing or someone's not satisfied with the direction they're getting or things along those lines I wouldn't imagine it would be a very driving or pressing type of uh engagement because quite frankly the the demands the job the nature of the job I don't think we're really acquire that also the hierarchy of how the staff is set up you know you've got this person at the top these people fall you know it just makes it easy so that no one questions it like you know who who does this why do I have to do that if that's yeah basically if everyone is up front with each other and we're go to communication over time nothing in that review should be a surprise to anybody absolutely there's always surprises absolutely there's always surprises sh's not your your your um employee uh stuff goes through rhr right yes yeah we're yeah I have to meet I have to meet with Y talk to Margaret and Kevin yeah was at the department would hold up to 2% based on performance going forward plus you know usually with the performance reviews the biggest thing is attendance you know in terms of and you know you have to deal with that in an ongoing basis you don't want to wait until the end of the you know review you know it's a it's a good thing to have but yeah you know again you have a small group so would be problem to do it nice idea I would talk to Margaret about that though yes actually yeah I've already um created she sent me the document we already said that was the document I showed you that yeah that we have to create in terms of job descriptions for the really three positions four positions including David um so but would so am I getting from you that um you're okay if someone could do a resolution for the 2% and then next meeting I'll have the valuation is that or do you want to wait or a couple quick questions yeah um Library historically provided an inclement each year over the last several years no it was frozen for was frozen for a long period and then I recall last year you had made recommendation to bring bring the rates into closer parity with the guidance from the state board so that was for lack of a better term perhaps a correction yes so that it should be in parody with what what is appropriate yes so this would be kind of a new starting increment going up and forward correct but the I'll say the the Frozen increments over the past years were theoretically corrected by adjustments last year mostly theoretically yeah yeah right yes okay yes sir um I might mention this after meeting so hold on okay to make a resolution if anyone would like to make a resolution for a 2% increase I'll make a motion that we U approve the 2% for staff employees forment liary second all in favor against no you're still on your own business oh no no you can go no no no no I'm done new business sorry you're not mind I'm sorry we're all good we're all good we're all good Bruce did you want to bring something up new business yeah uh I'm not going to be able to make the next meeting I already know ahead of time I have the fire department commitment I have to go take a test you know so I know I won't make that meeting and I know it's on the eth so it's April 8il yeah I think it is April 8th yeah and and I know I'm going to be out of that meeting as well I already spoke to Mike about it you want so I want to just make sure we're you want to change that date or do you want to still go with let what's the we date it sounds like we should probably change the date yeah but three of us already not able to to make it you want so you either go with the 1st or the 15th April fo that's the day that tell us we might all be here anyway standing outside taking a video of of the uh the windows coming in has got that cover anybody going to be doing hopefully not the 15th I mean we talk about doing every other month is that that be something that you want to you I think with the windows coming it's an important month I want to be here this There's an opportunity I think this would be the one where you give it a trial and then if we're overwhelmed and there may meeting and saying hey this is too much on one agenda yeah we missed we missed um February it really didn't affect um there's just so many things that to be well no that don't need to be approved you know um but it's it's up to you you've always had them every month um if there's something like for examp Le that we needed to have voted on for the increase you know I can't just do that then I would I would tell you but I don't I don't see anything for April but if you want to have a meeting because you want to you know maybe something with the windows I'm hoping they you know I don't think that requires a meeting I think it's just you who wants to show up and we're all out there looking at it but um they're they're not going to be here anyway my it's going to be in May that they're actually they might be in a yard somewhere somewhere if Pat Rody brings a couple guys to lift help us move the windows position on not quite just construction over the last couple years has been very difficult to line up and there's always delays that's an understatement make a change to your bylaws you going to go just B monthly the change in the bylaw if we if we did that continuous we only we only did it once so far thew same mon no I think we had it as a 10 Monon believe yes correct we didn't meet in July right so you're really not supposed to miss two in a I know you've done it forever but really not supposed to miss two in a row that's something it would be better to go EV every other and maybe add some in there rather than miss two in a row that's something in terms of um again it's always happened and no one's going to complain about it but you're supposed to just have every other so during the summer you really should have a a May and a July or you know we're just going to have it at Pat Rody's yeah it's a summer we're here meeting we'll probably have a oh because there's going to be food sir so okay so what do cons on well let's let's any more talk I mean be here right I'm not going to be here you're not be not going to be here I'm sorry he'll be here you won't be here so what's the consensus with people J jimy out I know I'm definitely out because I have um have a wellness them for the county all right how's the 15th look for more people then have a planning board Maria will be back right okay do we want to do I want to move it to the 15th is that majority sure 6 o'cl April 15th April 15th 6 o'cl ta to get before 12:00 so the only when we change the meeting here we have to put that out o' is beautiful it's still light out I know I missed the sunset but it's okay all right any other business to be brought up new old Public public right anyone want to make a motion in favor see you on the 15 not before look at that 1 hour 7 minutes