and um so the recreation committee is starting its meeting and in attendance is Christine marglin bz Riley Sam spak Elaine poo Anne Brigham and Barbara Bigalow um so uh Christine Robinson is is currently not here um so I guess I'm supposed to call the meeting to order and ask about approving the minutes is there a motion to approve the minutes so moved okay and all those in favor just raise your hand and that is unanimous great uh so uh what we'll start off with with is kite flying and Sam I was hoping you could tell us about the event I I know I talked with you a little bit about it and it sounds like it was wonderful yeah it was really great it was um it was a nice-ish day it could have been it was nice and Amur but in she Fair it was still pretty cold um and there was snow on the ground but um I think we bought 20 kits and I think there's two left um so we had quite a crowd come out and uh my my husband has that coffee stand so he brought coffee and people were making a Clips glass viewer things um and it was really fun and I think I would love to do it again another year when it's a little bit warmer maybe later in April we got that one last storm you know that really like we thought yeah anyway that last storm was a real doozy and then um but yeah it was it was wonderful I enjoyed it my kids enjoyed it got to talk to people I think it was good did the kites fly it was like a running fly situation which was great because my kids were tired right after they were exhausted running their little hearts out um so it was good great well thanks so much for the idea thanks so much for being there and yeah thank yeah it was fun yeah it sounds like it was a lot of it sounds like it was a lot of fun um so let's see the our next thing is um the night sky and at this point I actually just drafted up I'm going to send it to Maryanne um it will be May 11th and 18th with a rain date of May 25th um at 8:00 pm each of the nights um I've written up the blur the announcement is going to go out through the library and what day of the week is the uh both Saturday evenings oh both are Saturday I yeah they're all all three of them are Saturdays I'm just going to make quite certain yeah and um so once I have the once I have the names I will we're oh so it's limited to 20 people I don't know whether we'll get that many it sounded like he was hoping to have the same 20 at both but what I wrote in the blurb was you know if you're able to attend both of them that's great because then you get to see how the night sky changes even over the course of a week and if not please you know sign up for one that you're able to come to um we're likely going to have to do car pooling again uh I did that for um the hike the walk and it worked out fine we met behind the town hall there just wasn't room for all the cars so we'll do the same thing uh now Christine will be helping with this one I'm not I'm like I will not be available my daughter is uh it's graduation day she's getting her MSW in the graduation is that day and um we have all kinds of festivities planned so I will not be there but I will definitely get everything organized and ask you know make sure that Christine is managing the car pooling and if anybody else is able to go that would be great just to have kind of another person there to to help with the logistics it sounds like it's going to be fantastic um wedding on 18 so I can't do okay yeah but I can go on the 18th I'm pretty sure I just can't go on the 11th let's see I can go on the 11th Barbara oh thank you so much that's great yes so just if you could be in touch with um with Christine Christine and then um as we're getting the numbers I'll let uh Christine know and Tom let you Tom and Chris and Christine know um but it was like the car pooling was just super simple we just met behind and everybody piled into one person's big van and it was great and I'm did Tom say something about people needing to bring chairs that up I ended up not putting that into the blur because once I know who's coming like everybody who reads it doesn't need to know to bring a chair once I have a list of people I'll just send out an email saying you know bring a chair bring warm clothing and then um tell them about where to meet okay so I can do the 18th also oh super great then we can do that one oh and here's Christine perfect timing okay got Christine in here and catch her up on this part and sorry Barbara did you say there was a rain date I think I missed yes there's a rain date of May 25th May 25th thank you I think I can do the 11th if you need people oh great yeah it sounds like an can there and Christine hi I'm going to ask you to unmute because um we're talking about the night sky event oh hi hi sorry I'm late guys you're you're fired what you're fired no no no no no you for more jobs here you're you're doing everything going forward that's right you'll be signed up we signed you up for everything Christine yes guys yeah you're welcome now because Christine's going to take care of it all so and oh and for the record Christine Robinson has joined um the meeting so what we were just talking about is I'm not able to go on May 11th but you can and can and bz you said you could can go so we'll have plenty of coverage what I will do is once I have the names of who's coming from um Maryanne I will send uh emails out to those people copied to you this probably the best thing and then it in the major the major um task is going to be the car pooling but the car pooling worked out very easily with the with the walk and so I assume it will with this as well you know just people got there and one person had a really big van so everybody got in the van where are we carpooling to where does couldn't we walk could walk from town hall to the oh I think so okay I don't know where he lives I was thinking it was further it's is it close to town hall yeah oh perfect well then just park there or at the library where where are we talking about tell me where it is it's on wendle road but I'm not sure what the number is but it's it's near um uh Julie Taylor's it's a couple houses down from Julie Taylor oh sure we can walk there oh good okay so we'll just have people convene at the Town common then and then walk from there yes okay great all right well that just made things really easy because there's no car pooling that has to be done um let's see so that I think that's all that we have to do with the night sky event um and uh Christine I know you're tou with Tom so I'll just kind of stay out of the loop there um because you're taking care of that what time is this event planned 8m okay and you sign up through the library yeah so she's going to be sending out maryan will be sending out an announcement sometime this week I'm going to send the little blurb to her um right after the meeting that just is asking people to sign up and uh she will take care of kind of making sure sure that we don't go over the 20 um so oh Christine yeah go ahead did you have your hand raised did you mention a rain date of the 25th I did yeah also um included the information for maranne should be that they dress warm bring a chair if they want or a blanket maybe cap and gloves for little kids or you know it depends on how the night is and um yeah I think people should be fine to walk because that's what Tom and I had talked about it's only three houses behind the church oh oh yeah then definitely walk uh Christine just so you know this and and if you would prefer that I do it differently let me know um in the announcement for the event I wasn't going to put in the information about what to bring but once we know who's coming we'll I'll send them an email that says dress warmly bring a chair is that okay cool thank you Barbara oh you're well thank you're welcome and thank you I'm trying very hard when people say thank you to say you're welcome as cl to getting into the thank you fight you know I who says thank you last they win uh so anyway I appreciate I really appreciate the work that you've done to make this event possible and I did you talk to him about what we were able to pay and he was okay with that yes he's he's cool okay fantastic all right is there anything else on the night die event that uh we need to talk about well basically he said however long okay great people stay it's not about you know one hour whatever he's so flexible he's really um a good person to work with great now with the with the hike with other things we have we have not signed up so with the hike I did not sign up for it I just kind of was there and helped sort of Shepherd things so my inclination is not for us not to take up the slots not to sign up but to um you know just help facilitate things is that sound okay yep yep so there'll be more than 20 people but will'll be in a kind of helping role what hike are you talking about that was when we did the Ames Pond oh oh yeah yeah um I I had not I didn't sign up I just I acted as a sweeper although I'm forgetting his name now oh rats Graham Graham Graham it was somebody who was there and he loves being a sweeper oh and so he he was the sweeper and I didn't real and I didn't realize how much he loved it his name will come to me until his wife Dian uh said oh yeah no he's he likes to be the sweeper he's a really good sweeper so so what is a sweeper he's you're at the end of the group cleaning up nobody leaps off a cliff or anything or gets lost so he was a super he was a super super sweeper there we go so did you go on that walk Barbara yes I did it was fabulous yeah so um I think we should have one we should have those ongoing um to Ames pond because there are a lot of people who've asked about it and I think um we should just keep having like three a year or something so people idea yeah um so I don't know how we facilitate that but easily um well first that's the next thing if we're done with the night sky the next thing on the agenda is ases Pond and I think you know having Graham lead them or if there are other people who might be good at leading them um and it's easy to organize it's just so simple to we you know that email came from the rec committee it's really quite easy to to organize it so I think having them on a regular bases is a great idea yeah I just know there's a lot of interest a lot of people are asking about it so well we're going to have another one so here's the deal with the next one which I hope will be in June so I got a hold or I tried to get a hold of um Chris Volante who's been the contact person for us and she's out on a leave right now so she uh forwarded the email to um Stu Watson and he got back to me because I was just asking what's the status of the boardwalks and he said well they really hope to be done mid to late June so they would prefer that we wait to have the bo done because of the construction so I'm going to get a hold of him the day before our next meeting because there's going to be some implications obviously if he says it's not going to be ready you can't do it then we can push it into the next our next fiscal year um but then there will be well have well this is about the budget but then we're going to end up having some unspent money there but it at least if this point that's the plan is we will wait yes Sam I was just going to say I'm happy to coordinate with Stu if you want because he's my neighbor and uh in my kids class so I can just text him or whatever if you want perect okay I can talk to him thank you that would be great so we just need to know by I think May 28th is our next meeting what what the what the best date for the BL would be okay I can I can ask him why don't we just plan to do one in early July and then yeah well it would be nice just monetarily if we could oh because of yeah yeah yeah I get it because yes so if we can get if we can do one before June 30th but if it's not he thinks his email suggested that he thinks it will be done um but he said if you can wait until mid to late June that would be great and I wrote just wrote back saying I don't think that's a problem and that I would get a hold of him so our next meeting is on May 28th and so I would get a hold of him or Sam on just right before our meeting uh-huh so that we we so that we can then find out whether or not we can actually schedule something in June yeah good yeah and I really like I what do other people think about just our kind of regularly scheduling walks at Ames Pond good I think yeah I think one every season you know like four a year one winter one fall spring summer because it's such a cool place I think people are blown away when they see it it it it it's such a little treasure in our town in my opinion ABS okay so that so the next thing on the agend the next thing on the agenda would be the birds and will we be doing a kind of bird um watching Walk later this month in May and who was I I Elaine were you talking to I've been talking to um I mean the the burder that I know best that that's the best burder is Cliff Reed um but he is on a um cross country trip and he won't be back till May 9th is he biking again no no no they're just they're in a car this time oh thank God they're actually biring they they were birding in Texas and Arizona and New Mexico and now they're working their way back home so so he won't be back until the 9th I mean there's there's other people who know about birds I don't know anything about when birding is the when's the best season for it um Christine looks like she knows so just to give you guys information I heard the hummingbirds are coming are here and there's a really great every day at 3:30 and 6:15 I believe on the river the dude his name is Dan I think from Sugarloaf Gardens and every day he talks about a different bird all year long depending on if it's fowl Birds Etc that would be danzic I bet yeah yeah guess what who started that program bird song was my brother really he did because he was a RSI DJ and he started it because he liked Jazz and Charlie bird Parker and he thought oh that' fun let's do bird song which he knew nothing about Birds by the way but he started that whole thing and it continued after he left with Dan zc is the name of that guy it's a great storyy yeah so you know birders can like jazz as well I guess they so I wonder if I went and talked to him if he would be willing do you think Bey to do a talk for us he might he might he's a cool guy he's a really he's super busy right now right you know spring buring season when is when is the height of birding it's all year round this is what I'm saying he tells you every single day depending on the season like in the beginning of Spring he'll talk about ducks because the Ducks are migrating some stay here but some hang here but then they go to Canada to lay their eggs yeah like some of the water fowl I think birders right in our town too I don't think um yeah I think yes s is Penny Jake isn't she a burer I don't know yes yes she's a real burer really good too because elain and I walk with her and she's often like oh there's a goza such and such and I'm like really who did you say Helen an's a really good burer and so is Libby yes a lot of the women in town are really good birders yeah and Mike Ross are really good birders they're on a birding trip right now there's a lot of birders so I guess we we just need to figure out which one would be a good good one and would be willing to do it right well we could ask Helen Anne and Libby and see if either of them want to do it that would be great if you could and I think we're probably looking at June because we already have kind of two things coming up in May yep and in terms of June we're pretty much wide open probably something right at the beginning of June because it's most likely if we are going to be able to do a walk at ases pond that it would be towards the end of the month not the beginning so if we were looking at something like you know June 1st or June 1st or 2nd or June 8th something like that okay so can someone make a commitment to get a hold of a burder a woman burder um and let you and I can figure that out okay that would be great thank you and then um then we would be able to do it either June 1st or 8 this particular one I don't uh I think it might be because our meeting is the 28th if we're doing it on June 8th that gives us plenty of time to get an announcement out and have people sign up June 1st would be a little bit too close to May 28th or if you can get a hold of somebody and get a commitment and let me know then I can just send out the announcement as we get closer to the date okay probably the latter is the best idea that is talk to them get a date we've all all agreed that we will have to do it I don't think we all have to necessarily agree on the date um so then I can just kind of if you if you get that committed in the time then I'll send out the announcement and help because I'm that sound good to everybody yeah okay good all right well we're really moving through um our our thing now the next thing is the budget um because it looks like we're going to have excess money yes easy can I add thing about the um artist studio tours I wanted to talk about that now that would be great yeah because that's the end of June um and so I don't want to I think we should we're hoping we'll get a lot of people will come we have about 12 or 14 artists signed up right now fantastic yeah I think it's going to be good and um it's June 30th right it's 30th it's in the afternoon from from 12 to 4: or 1 to 5 or something I'm not quite sure exactly but in the afternoon and um I'm going noon to five noon to five noon to five okay and we're gonna I'm gonna be making a map of all the different Studios that are going to be open but I think it'll be fun people can um you know drive from one Studio to another I'm going to have four people here at my studio wow yeah which we're going to put a tent up so that's uh Becca wheeler can have her scul her uh Furniture outside and oh nice other people are doing that too having you know guests come into there so uh even though there are only 12 or 14 Studios I think they're more actual artists and it's sort of cool there are that many artists in shury yeah they're giving out flyers when you pick up your trash bags yeah we were involved with that I'm going to meeting looks good with Joan they were at the meeting um Merl handed them out at the meeting as well when we were um filling out envelopes for people that donated to the library so Merl's really getting them out there and I'm excited I Joan is very excited she's been waiting for this to happen I know she's been chomping at the bit here and she's very organized she's a very good uh leader of the troop so yeah we have somebody who's 18 and somebody who's 82 so we have quite a range and there are some males a few males but mostly women but there are few males so you know those men I never knew uh Nate was an artist I knew he was a a set designer yeah but I didn't know he was an artist well his wife is is definitely an artist um she's a sculptor and W yeah it will be fun to see what they've done with that basement and made it into a so yeah it's gonna be fun yeah so I just I made a note to myself for the Ames Pond walk not June 30th yes please don't schedule anything on that weekend because we want to try to get people to come it's going to be a for people to open their Studios and yeah yeah thanks for the update that's great yeah okay so here's the issue with the budget we're not going to be able to spend all all our money on on the events that are coming up so so far and and Christine for the sake of the minutes I was going to type this up and then I didn't but I could type it and send it to you right after if that would be helpful so we've given $1,000 to the library we gave $250 to Graham we gave $500 to Tom so that comes to $1,750 if we do the walk in the birds that's another 500 plus we spent a little bit on kites so we spent about $2,300 which leaves us with $700 sorry I'm sorry could you repeat that's why I wondered if you'd like me to just send it to you well I think I got a th000 to the library 250 to Graham 500 to Tom 2 50 for the next walk assuming we do that okay and 250 for the birds okay yeah oh and Graham did donate his to the library he was very grateful to be paid and also felt that he didn't want to keep the money so he donated it to the library which is really nice cool yeah oh and I was gonna we had talked about this last time I was just going to ask Graham to do the next walk as well if he's here okay so we're left with about $700 um and if for any reason we don't do the walk or the birds that will be an additional 500 do we actually lose that money if we don't spend it well we've already been we would yeah we don't we can't take it into the next year so I have a question about that um we've already been given 3,000 for next year if we don't spend all of our money this year would that potentially affect our allocation in for fiscal year 2026 yes okay so we need to spend it we should spend it okay I have a suggestion go ahead oh I was gonna say I have a suggestion about the artist studio tour maybe we could get um and I'd be happy to do this Refreshments for people to have at their studio and I could distribute it to the different people and also I'm going to be doing a map which is going to cost money to um so I don't know Joan did get some money from us I don't think she did I don't think we've given her any money yet okay um she got it from the Cal cultural cultural you got money from somebody she's making she's using that for the signs but I think there are gonna it' be nice to have a couple um other things like just sort of I think Refreshments you know just drinks and snacks foods for people okay um I don't know if that if that seems okay with everybody but yeah it's fine fine with me fine with me okay looks like what about what happened to the idea Sam that you had of getting pennies and uh soccer balls and just having like pickup soccer for the kids um I actually talked to you has no Sean who's doing the trash uh coordinator now he has a kid in uh preschool with my kiddos I just didn't have the capacity to do it this like I would be coaching and doing it this spring and I just didn't have it in me but he said he would do it with me so I said maybe by the Fall he and I could get that ball rolling together but um roll yeah but um I need a minute no problem I mean I think I think even if we could do it so that we we buy um two sets of maybe 20 pennies each uh two colors and you know it could be just random random you know bring your kids up to behind the the town hall or bring your kids to the fire station and let's play soccer and just get a couple balls together and uh let's let's do it and we're the the reason I'm saying that uh mostly is because if we show that we don't use our money chances are we're not going to get the same amount of money in the years when we're we're ramping up okay okay so I love the idea of the soccer balls and pennies the question I have about um money for the art show is we would presumably can we just get can they just say say we're going to spend x amount of money on refreshments and then that's enough of a invoice or do we do the they have to go and buy it and do I have to have all the receipts before I can submit it okay that's a good question I don't know yeah how did we do it for the food for uh um field day well that but that was just that was all receipts so that was our event whereas this is giving it to somebody else for their event well it's our sponsoring can't we just give them money to sponsor the event okay yeah and they use it as you know maybe she needs more money for signs and publicity um maybe she'd rather have it for that or for uh for Refreshments I mean we could just sponsor how much do you want to give her I'll just tell her she'll have that extra little and she can decide how she wants to spend it or our committee can decide what do you want we yeah and and just sorry just to confirm we are already co-sponsoring the event yeah so but not monetarily right right but I mean so we said we would do it so yeah so okay so um we've got 700 to $1,200 that's going to be needing to be spent well we could have caviar how would 250 be for her I think she would love that let's make it 300 sounds good okay how much you think pennies cost who's gonna be responsible to go get all these Refreshments Etc all that stuff I'm gonna do it okay because I don't think Joan's gonna want to have that added to her no I'm gonna do it I'm on the committee with her so I'll do it all right cool thanks bees sure and that leaves us with um $400 to $900 now one place we can put money is we can give it to the library for their programming oh so there's no problem spending the money it's just if there's other things that we could spend the money on and I love the idea of offering her the money because one we're a co-sponsor two it's like a really great event and any way we can help strengthen it is wonderful um but so yeah that was actually one of my two ideas in terms of the balls um we can just go ahead and buy a whole bunch of soccer balls M and um pennies I I know nothing about it all I know is that all the the balls when my kids played always came in a great big huge net bag so we get the great big huge net bag and tons of balls and may cones I mean what you could get like little popup Nets too that's that collapse and store pretty easy pop up net balls maybe the other idea for the library is I know that the life vests um expired for The Kayaks and they know they're trying to get those donated but I don't know how that panned out but that could be yeah I I don't know what um what that result was but if if they didn't get donated I bet that would be appreciated did you say Sam the life vest expired I that's what I heard I think that and no longer safe I mean that sounds I think it's like like car seats do too things with styrofoam I think have like you're supposed to use them for a certain number of years and then yeah yeah that's that's what I heard that sounds like a scam to me I know the manufacturer of the of the life until your your kayak tips over beey and you're not purpose a pretty high risk I guess yeah suspicious I would like to propose something because we do have this uncertain amount in terms of the money it's it sounds like we'll definitely have the bird so we can take that 250 away so we're really looking it having between 400 and 6 $650 um so that's after paying for the art so suppose the art is the the the art thing is the first priority Studios the second is getting the soccer things and the third is whatever's left we buy life jackets great that's sound good did we just lose Sam uh yeah she'll probably get back in I need her for the next agenda item okay so that that will be then our our plan will easily be able to spend the money and it will be oh good here's Sam okay so I'll just give her a minute to to get on sorry button you're needed for this next item I think this item is going to make people happy so there has not been a huge rush to my door with people begging to be the chair of the recreation committee I know this will come as a surprise to all so two great minds in here we're thinking alike and fortunately we had a conversation at Town Hall to learn that two great minds were thinking alike and that was Sam and me co-chairing the committee whoa yes yes yes okay great good yeah I I was gonna be a surprise to somebody going no you know we're so sick of you she live a lot longer than the rest of us so we're all gone you unless unless I have an expired life vest on we know Sam's first order of business but I did hear I did just I did just text my friend they haven't heard about the Lifest yet that they got donated okay anyway well that that we just I can't remember if you were here when I was saying that the order priori is we're we're we're giving $300 to Joan for the as part of our sponsorship the next order of business the next priority will be the soccer things and then the third will be whatever's left we bu life jackets perfect yes well great so um all right well I'm I'm glad everybody is happy with that I'm very happy with that solution because I was not wanting to continue on as a sole chair and um not wanting to we really do great stuff so now we'll and yeah and I'm in a spot in life where it's nice to have a backup because my life gets a little crazy sometimes so it's nice to not have the full burden I couldn't do the full burden of it but I could do it with Barbara for sure thanks to both of you it's great thank you excellent solution yeah so that that's our agenda for today is there anything else that may be I've missed that anybody's thinking about no sounds good great programming I have to say I I applaud all the work that goes into this but I think we doing some really fun things yeah actually this is this is something that kind of popped into my head when Sam and I were talking and it was and what made me think about it was the kites is that we have the capacity to do like popup events you know suppose somebody just felt like going and flying a kite or getting people together to kick we could just send out you know an email that says on such and such a date no money no nothing just anybody who feels like doing a popup event and I think kind of fun to think about that going into next year nothing nothing that requires organization nothing that requires anything other than than Andy's coffee um but there you know there's just so many things to do whether in one of one idea that came from the village neighbors was they were saying you know there are people who are older who are have mobility issues that can walk but not very well how about sponsoring a walk around the the town common but just you know making making just events available for kids for elders for people in between that don't require anything other than people just show up MH so kind of throw that out there as something for us to think about hey I just thought of another way to spend money easy I'm really good at this um because you know the popup tents that the library has apparently they disintegrated because they're just they got some will deteriorate them and maybe we should buy a couple popup tents that we could use for our events and they could we could share them with the library I think we actually lost one when we were U doing the well testing yeah and um I just heard from Dave moer that they had to throw up some like three of them out because they just you know were broken and I thought well gez we could use those for the rec committee and share them with the library because they usea anyway I don't know how much those cost but um I'm sure on where you get them if you go to job lot or something like that yeah I think we I got one at uh dicks actually a years ago jaot has got better prices okay and they they're just what do you think of that getting a couple new popup TS I think that's a good idea I mean I'm I'm willing to threaten people's lives by having them use you know life jackets keep us dry when it's raining that's a that's a scam okay well as always great meeting great ideas we're moving forward um and so I'll just be in touch with um with with you know Bey in a lane just kind of let me know what's happening with the bird thing and uh and I won't and we'll know um at the end of May what the scoop is with Ames Pond okay sounds good christe should I should I talk to Dan no I think we should um try to get somebody from shsy first gotcha okay cool and it would be nice to have a woman I think too okay yeah and I would but I would love it if you could send the information about where he I just would love to go hear him he's just kind of out there talking he he works at Sugarloaf Gardens which is on 116 yeah yeah yeah okay he what Christine was talking about before barbar he does like a one minute spot on the radio station okay every day at 3:30 and at 6:15 every single day except for the weekend okay that's really helpful to know thank you all right so does anyone anybody want to move to adjourn the meeting okay and a second and all those in favor and that is unanimous and I am turning the recording off now it