okay so it's just 401 and we're just beginning the meeting and uh today present is uh Christine marglin Christine Robinson Anne Brigham Barbara bigo and bz Riley uh Sam should be here and Elaine wrote to say that she will not be able to come today we actually have H and here's Sam fantastic okay so Hi Sam she's also on the connecting to audio bumping list oh there you are hi great hi hello so uh first um call the meeting to order um for the minutes is there any discussion of the minutes from our last meeting if not can someone hi beey move to approve the minutes and we have a second to that my second and all those in favor raise your hand and so it's show that it's unanimous thank you um and for those who just came in Elaine is just getting back from her trip and so she is is not going to be joining us today so we had a we have a pretty short agenda I'm actually going to start off with something that is implied in the agenda but isn't explicit and that is um an update on our first walk it was fantastic it was absolutely fantastic we uh went over to Ames Pond um we avoided the area where they're working on the boardwalk there was still a great plenty of trails and things to see we started off thinking it was going to take about an hour but Graham had so much really interesting information to share and people were asking so many questions and people were so enthusiastic about the whole thing that it ended up at some point we he stopped and said um we could turn around now and it'll be closer to one hour or we could keep going oh keep going keep going so we kept going but he knows so much about the history of the place and the Flora and the fauna and it was just everybody had a nice time so I think we've got a real winner here as uh something to do going into the future our next walk will be again at ases Pond but we'll wait until after the boardwalks are are ready to go so we'll be able to walk right along the edge of the pond how many people were there Barbara 15 we had quite a waiting list so I we capped it at 15 he again pardon will he do it again so we can add some people that couldn't be able to make it um we were actually going to ask somebody else to do the spring one but we could ask him again too I'm trying to remember I think one of the people was actually um I believe they're married Helen an is that Helen an yeah that's her his wife yeah so Elaine was going to be lining someone up to uh do the Spring Walk um and I gathered that her knowledge is as deep and and as complete as his knowledge so I would say greater than oh well then that'll be we'll have to plan three hours because it it was she's quite a birer so if you go walking with her she hears a bird she knows exactly what it is which is oh that'll be cool yeah that'll be very nice yeah and added bonus and what an added bonus on your yeah absolutely and the other thing that was really nice was there were two two couples who came who were very new like within the last few months so it a nice opportunity for people to kind of mingle and chat um it was it it was extremely Pleasant afternoon it was kind of Muddy we were really afraid we were going to have to cancel it again because of the rain and we decided that if it was drizzling we would go and if it was pouring rain we would cancel and we would not be rescheduling and and it was fine it was kind of overcast but there wasn't any rain and you know I got to meet some new people which was really nice so so this is a very very easy thing for us to do to organize and um I will be anxious to see how this next one goes but given our waiting list my guess is that um we will have no problem filling it um cool yeah yeah so that's the report on the first walk the other thing um that was on the agenda is we have these other events that are going to be coming up and I'd really like to start nailing down dates so I was hoping to hear from those of you who are talking with people to see whether or not you've had that conversation and if not um can you have that conversation within the next couple three weeks because we're coming up to the end of um March already yeah Christine so I um talked to Tom yes and he gave me these dates he said octo I'm sorry April 27th May 4th 11 18 and 25 okay him to so generous with this that okay remind me what what are you asking him to do what are we asking him to do the astronomy class at his house oh okay I was thinking the guy at the high school the elementary school so and then we had um talked to him about doing and actually he he suggested it doing two nights so it'll be two separate nights which will be fun to see how the Stars changed between those um well unless there's any objection I don't think of the other of the other events that we're looking at um I would go for the earlier of the dates so 427 and 54 so the thing he explained as well regarding the moon so the 27th there's no moon or the fourth the moon will be on the 11th and the 18th and the 18th is the last quarter so it's on its way to being full and he said to keep in mind that you don't want to go out there when it's completely dark that he thinks we should have people arrive early so that they can see the sun go down he thought that would be cool so he's thinking like 7:40 um also he said to tell people to wear bring caps and gloves because it gets cold to dress warm bring it chair a blanket if that's something they want and also um maybe carpool at the town hall or walk over to his house I don't know like if that's going to be safe for families because he's only like three three houses behind the church oh okay well the things worked out pretty well with car pooling for the walk yeah Limited places and so a bunch of us met behind the town hall and actually that was really nice cuz you know a bunch of people got in this car and none of us knew each other and by the time the whole thing was done we did know each other so the car pooling worked really well and I just organ obviously organized that ahead of time I asked people if they'd be willing to do it so um once we once we know from him what he wants to put in terms of a cap on the number of people he said I think he said um right now he he doesn't know yet how much he's even going to charge I said well how long of a a slot of time he goes when the last person leaves okay so um he does not want to quote a price yet okay like I told him I was going to bring this to the meeting and then M when I talk to him maybe he'll have a you know price or whatever right well what we had talked about giving people was I forgot if it was $200 or $250 to each of the presenters so I don't know whether or not we ought to offer that price to him because if he comes back saying it's ,000 do well we can't do it I don't think would he's in I don't want him to underprice himself so um maybe when you talk to him just say this is what we've been paying people and how does that sound to him okay 250 250 yeah other two days yeah um I'm trying to think how much money we actually have I think we have plenty um to go offer so $500 for him we yeah I would think that we could offer him um 250 for 250 per night for each of the evenings okay okay yeah yeah that was the amount that Maryanne said that they offered to people um Christine did you say If he if he stated a maximum number of people who could be there um it's at his house so um I will get that information from him great because as soon as um as soon as we have the date nailed down and we get a little closer to it um um we would we would want to know what the cap is so basically first come first serve sorry did you want me to nail him down for the those days or like what days should I tell him well we're going to need to nail it down because we have other things that we'll be scheduling and so it I'm trying to pick up from what you're saying is whether he's which ones he recommends I mean it sounds like he thinks some of these are better than others so I'd rather he was doing the picking than that we were doing the picking he said the 11th and the 18th are the ideal days oh then let's make it the 11th and the 18th okay okay yeah sounds good is this co-sponsored with the library yes yeah and MaryAnn said that she would take care of sign getting people signed up for it so once have the once we have that capacity okay so that that works out that works out well then 5'11 great thank you very much Christine thank you Christine yeah um I think the bird watching that's Elaine so I think I will just talk with her um separate from our our meeting just to kind of get her to so that in our April meeting I know that one the bird watch was going to be in miday were the dates um for that um and the nice thing about this being in the evening is that you know worse comes to worse we end up having an evening and an afternoon thing planned on the same day but given that I think there's a lot of people who'll be interested that's not the end of the world uh so that leaves us with mushrooms and my memory of mushrooms was that we wouldn't schedule that until all danger of frost was over is that correct is there anybody Bey were you doing yeah I haven't been able to find anybody who wants to do it oh oh well then that may take care of that one okay yeah it it because I think for one reason it there's an initial cost of you have to buy the spores and uh the spores are then grown on the little wooden plugs and if you didn't know how many and that has to happen like six weeks before you put the plugs into the log right you see what I mean there's sort of a like well if we don't know how many people are coming and then you they the person who's doing it has to put out a an you know a fair amount of money to buy the spores and the plugs and have the right environment to do it so I don't know if it's actually going to work for our situation because it's um people aren't willing to sort of like say oh yeah I I'd be happy to show people but I've got to do all the infrastructure before I mean maybe if they if you weren't if people weren't expecting to go home with a log they're not I thought what we had talked about was that we were going to give kind of an introduction to what it takes for people to decide if it's something that they wanted to do but that yeah yeah anyway I haven't found anybody who's willing to do it okay other yeah well thank you foring and if we don't we don't think we have I mean maybe somebody will come up I you know I I keep meaning to ask Maryann there was a young woman who moved to town in the last couple years who presented herself as a mushroom expert and she she she was uh taking people on mushroom walks now whether she did the shitake logs I don't know but I could ask Maryann about her but I sort of had the feeling she didn't do that she did yeah actually think I know who you're talking about I think her name is Jess Benson she to be neighbor yeah um but they I also know that the serus community like already does grow mushrooms yeah um and like I'm sure they have a day that they do that I don't know if that would be a a group to ask if I don't know anybody there you know anyone there who could um uh yeah I know people I can ask yeah just ask who to ask I guess yeah yeah yeah the two people that I know weren't available to do it um because they just had too much going on um but it it is something we could keep pursuing and you know fall is sort of the Prime mushroom time um the shitake you can do anytime but I think you you have to from what I understand you have to get a fresh log an oak log um and that involves chainsawing down some trees which you know in SHO SP I don't know people aren't into taking down trees so we may run into a little trouble with you know the proceed along and and see how that develops because I think this was about you know if people were interested in growing their own mushrooms kind of know how to get started with it yeah and again enough activities that this is not you know the sole thing we're planning on doing right and I could ask um Helen Anne who used to work at the Hitchcock Center and Colleen they may know somebody I'll I'll I'll hunt through them see if they know somebody if it works out that'll be great and if it doesn't and we could you know it could happen in the future sounds like we have a lot going on we do have a lot going on and I think also we could um you know consider doing a sort of a mushroom hunt or whatever but go out in in the fall would be a really the woman Sam I think that's what she does she takes hunts in the fall now the other so our other event is the Kites and um that's happening on April 7th 11: a.m. Town Town common is that right and it's going to be combined with um a kind of I don't know how to put a celebration of the eclipse that's being put together by Maryanne which is you kind helping people make little boxes to safely view the eclipse and um and then our kites are fit in very nicely with the theme of the sky so um Sam did do you have it I know you've been doing more with this than I have I don't know if you I haven't I haven't done much I just think I need to make sure it gets into the roadtown news right and I tried putting up a sign in town common but ironically it kept blowing away so so I'm gonna have Andy try to really jam it in there like well it's windy here so yeah that's that's my only update I guess we'll also send something out um from with the the rec committee email and uh I know that maryan is also publicizing it um and now the kites I was kind of half paying attention so we are going to be supplying kites for those that need them and they self people decorate them is that right were those the ones that we picked yeah I think so I think we got ones you could decorate oh that's gonna be very cool sadly I'll miss it not sadly I'll be in in Italy for two and a half weeks so I'm not sad about that I'm very excited about that never been So Christine you want to go or something um so I'm pretty excited about that but I will not be here for for that um that event but I hope others will be able to I know Samuel will be there and I hope others will get hit by a desire to fly a kite so um and I was think I was thinking on that nice um logo that you did Sam we should maybe put some some kites in the sky above the Moose I like that's a great idea the Moose flying kite yeah kites flying moose flying kit I like it definitely be getting to the logo because I want to make sure we give it it's due and thoroughly applaud Sam for such an incredibly great idea okay so um like I said I didn't think I this is not going to be a terribly long meeting um the major thing is getting the dates set up but it looks like we're well well on our way to getting that done we can't set up the date for the second walk yet because we can't do it until the boardwalks are done um and the last time we talked she said she thought it would probably be late May to Mid June um so oh and then the bird watching one that's the middle week of May is that right yeah that's when um it's whoever it was is Craig I don't know can't remember his name Reed is it Craig Reed anyway that's who she was going to be asking Cliff Cliff Reed Cliff I knew it started with a c yeah Sam um quick question about I guess the Kate thing is if you're not here and it's a rainy day what what do how do we cancel what do we proceed what are the proceedings to cancel it or resed it that would be through Maryanne okay yeah I think I'll put that in our email out that you know uh check for an email from and I'll actually ask Maran we can figure that out on Thursday we can take a few minutes when we have our meeting for she she's out of town oh she's out of town okay yeah I'll send send her a text then okay sounds good yeah I that's the nice thing about co-sponsoring things yeah just wanted to make sure there was some sort of a plan make sure we say something about it wasn't just me with a sign in the rain saying canell I kind like that there a foror quality that [Laughter] idea okay so did the egg hunt happen this weekend it did how was it in the snow it was it was fine it happened it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be it was fine keep your expectation I did not want to go out I was I was not excited I'll tell him to be out in that but it was fine Maran said there was a big turnout she was pretty pleased yeah know it was good a lot of brave souls out there it was like it wasn't actually ended up being a nice day would have just stayed in our house miserable if it wasn't there you know yeah so it worked out so much nicer to be outside in the cold be miserable with other people always good exactly I just want to make sure that I've got so the two events that are still kind of hanging are the birds the bird watching and the second walk okay and those are very straightforward to take care of and then the mushrooms if it works it works if it doesn't it doesn't and we've got our dates for the moon which is great and not I mean for the night sky um okay so I keep bringing this up but I just want to make sure that we kind of give it some thought um so I put something into the roadtown news about the fact that I'm not that I'm stepping down as chair and that the committee needs a chair and little bit about the kind of time that it's going to take but I think it's going to have to be asking people um I mean I don't I I'm not sure that that's really going to maybe it'll met people but um there's something on on our web page about it as well uh but I I really kind of depend and especially on those of you who have been around for a while to identify and ask people who might be interested because I just really don't know enough people in shutesbury to be able to um you know identify somebody do anyone had any ideas of people somebody asked me about um being on the committee and she was going to contact you I don't know if she did no not to my knowledge anyway okay if we mention the two week trips to Italy that go along with being I we'll get a lot more applicants just saying that all expense paid trip yeah if I sign on now do I get to go in April Barbara I can I be your vacation Barnacle fit in my fit in my suitcase with all my stuff you to come okay um the logo first I just want to say sorry Barbara one thing on that I I wonder um is it would it be useful to just make like tiny little you know a stack of slips of paper to have at the kite event that just say like interested in being and then people could take it with them that you know the information that you put in roadtown news I don't know I don't know but it wouldn't hurt yeah yeah Sam why don't you and I talk I'm leaving on Monday so my my T talking time is getting compressed but I'll see you on Thursday it just basically whatever goes into the roadtown news we should have in the email from um the recreation committee should be on the little slip paper so that there's consistency there yeah good idea I figured also somebody who it might be worthwhile getting a hold of um Susie moer she seems to often be the person who's knows everybody and gets people to do things so um she might be another another person I was trying to think of people who came to the pickle ball and are probably still coming to the pickle ball um and one woman Libby what is her last name Libby laugh yeah yeah her name keeps coming up I don't know whether she'd be interested or not I guess she would be she's a good friend of elain's okay I'll ask elain about that and she was she worked at uh ammer in town government so she's a very organized you know um person and great she would be very good she does a lot of stuff in town great okay I'll follow up with Elaine about he's retired you know you need yeah and she's a very good pickleball player let take Barb are you are you going to stay on the committee or are you just not wanting to be chair I just don't want to be chair anymore yeah so I'll stay on the committee definitely just curious and I've done it so I passed it on to Barbara so that's right I think Elaine is the person who first got me onto the committee and then I was on the committee while you were chair and then the next thing I know I'm chair that's what happens that's watch out Sam okay so where did oh here it is I'm trying to share my screen here okay so Sam approached me um about she she asked would the rec committee like a logo and I thought we never thought about that but what a really really cool idea and then the next thing I know Sam sent me this to and I so I'm bringing it to all of you and so one how do you feel about having a logo and two kind of using this as about uh bouncing off point um how would we like that logo to look so first how do you feel about having a logo sure yeah where would we where would we use it I think the idea would be like on flyers and stuff like that it kind of came up when I was making the kite flyer with Maryann because the library had a logo but the rec committee didn't so it looked like a library event and not as much a w committee event if that makes sense yeah totally yeah I think we should get t-shirts or caps for our committee with this um and I think it should be on the uh on the kites oh by the rec committee we're building our brand here in town I do I do think a at in the in the area behind the Moose it would be nice to have something either St like our stargazing like just some stars like an Orion's belt or you know something or um the kites like feel like yeah sort of fun to have something in the sky and since we're having two Sky events yeah I like the idea I like that too I mean it' be simple to throw in some stars as opposed to drawing a kite but I don't know I don't want to I don't want to I don't want to add work to you because I really do like it the way it is too but yeah Sam I Don't Want Ad work either but I like the idea of the kites because it gives a bigger range of what the committee does like if it's Stars maybe it people think we just out in the woods and look for moose we haven't done yet we haven't done the Moose walk yet that's true good point I'm sorry no I'm happy to make a couple different ones I love doing this stuff it's yeah I like it okay so I can do a couple different choices no problem I just thought it might be nice to have an activity something you know I it so it doesn't look like we're just going out and walk aimlessly in the woods like moose playing pickle ball or something pickle ball have a pickle ball R keep the pickle ball out of this we don't want to get in the business of the pickle ball the pickle ball is now coming going along all on its little own with no interference from us at all so we were very helpful in kind of giving them their little boost to get started and now they're yeah yep off doing their thing just want to go back to what Ann was saying about not wanting people to think that we were out walking in the woods looking for moose but with the kites are people going to think that all we do is go out and look for moose that are flying kites I if we put a little Beret on the Moose then it could be like the artist moose and some mushrooms mushrooms that's right the leaning tower of pza right behind it there you go also H Barbara and Christine Sam doesn't know about your plans to introduce pole dancing to town oh that's I think she would have drawn something very different I'm very into that idea dancing moose yeah leave the pole dancing off of the logo I think you could sell a lot of t-shirts that that way po dancing moose there go very good great well Fantastic Sam thank you so much for coming up with this idea for doing this and it's just really wonderful we appreciate it so much well that is really all she wrote this month because we've got our activities lined up and we you know just have some a few final touches that we have to do with that um the only thing that really needs to be done before I leave which I will do um and then Sam if can share it with you is just draft uh whatever that email is going to say from us um and I think that and I'll talk to Elaine about the dates and about Libby lass am I missing I don't think I'm missing anything does anyone have anything else that they are have a burning desire to bring up so Barbara you're back for the April meeting yes I come back on the 17th okay tell us where you're going in Italy where yeah I'm gonna be in Umbria for about five days and then in Rome for the rest of the time wow are you are you traveling alone I have the most extraordinary travel Arrangements I have a very close friend who's fluent in Italian lived in Italy for a while oh my God and she and her husband have been wanting to take me to Italy for many years Co came we didn't go and now the time is here and so we're going to be going so and we're being joined by a friends of theirs who I know her but not well who is an art curator at a museum so I'm going to have their expertise of having lived in Rome they go would typically will stay and live in Rome for anywhere from two weeks to a month each year so I'll have my personal guides I'll have my art specialist and my very close friends both of whom are composers one of them won this very prestigious Rome award and they're living in Rome um with all their room and board paid for for for a year and so I get to see them now doesn't that sound amazing it sounds amazing it's gonna be amazing W are you coming home no you found out why I don't want a continuous chair we're never gonna see you again you can zoom from Italy that's not problem yeah no it's it's pretty extraordinary I just feel so fortunate because they're they're all lovely people and you know I feel like I have this Entourage and it's all there to keep me informed and up toate and and Margaret her call to fame is she knows all the best restaurants she's very very very into food so yeah you are blessed and they are blessed have fun oh golly I sure will I really will have a great one is our next meeting the 23rd or the 30th uh it's whatever the 4th okay 23rd then yeah yeah okay are we adjourning at 4:30 that's so is there a move to adjourn okay and all those in favor raise your hand okay and so we are adjourning at 4:35 and that was uh approved unanimously