well hello everyone this is um the um Southwick agricultural commission a work session meeting of March 27th 2024 uh the meeting is being recorded and we do have a um a quum with myself Bert Hansen Sage Fury um jeny petro and Tom Jes so thank you alternates for for being here I knew um uh you know you know we had a text the other day Zach's out in Arizona and um Marissa can't make it Angie just texted and said she has some stuff going on um Dan said he couldn't make it Marissa we got an email said that she couldn't make it so anyway so we have four and good for a work session that's yeah yeah good so we can go home at 7:30 no just kidding make sure we stop recording right um record the wall exactly a couple quick things that I'll do under public comments they're actually more like informational but um you know we have the uh Lisa Anderson and others here are trying to set up meetings with several boards and commission about the chapter 61 protocols we had all said well we can pretty much do it anytime you know with enough notice other boards I don't know that can you tell me what chapter 61 it's the um there 61 a and then there's APR which are Farmland protection okay um uh statutes I guess it's basically a uh kind of a tax reduction thing for for farmers and just uh and Marissa had worked a lot last year on protocols uh when when somebody has a a property that's in one of those um sections uh and they want to take it out they want to sell the property um they're supposed to notify the town town has a right of first refusal to buy it as conservation there's time periods though and we've missed out on some properties in the past because folks didn't exactly know who's supposed to do what when so that's what Marissa was trying to do is document um those steps process great to have a a plan when we find out ready to go realizing some of you kind of newer folks don't have that document so um I will get that to you so that uh Lisa Anderson the select board secretary is trying to set up a meeting with you know us historical Commission planning board conservation all the like seven or eight boards that are impacted by this um I think that's going to be tricky because that's like about 40 people you know anyway so no no update on that yet do we know what the normal timeline is so like when we get the first right of first refusal what's the time limit and then the bigger question is how long is would it take us to get through all of the protocol it possible to actually execute that it's it's very tricky um I think if I we haven't been through this in a little while but I think after the F the first notification you get 30 days to respond and then there's 120 days to actually take action um but a lot of stinks for the owner though right I mean if someone's willing to pay cash and right say it's above the market price right and it's we're a little bit hamstring in town because that all has to go to town meeting oh it does so yeah so let's say the community preservation wanted to buy the property well they got to they have the money they can vote on it but it has to be approved by town meeting so is there any way to do emergency meetings uh you can I know we don't like to do that obviously anything with emergency on it you can do a special meeting um yeah but generally the town doesn't like doesn't like doing that say yeah it was the reason why Marissa did the work she did to compile all the information and make it kind of a straightforward process but everyone still has to get on board with it and that's the kind of the junction there right right so what what's our Town's appetite for that for conservation and like we should have a goal right and every year you have an amount yeah you know like so we can move quick just on behalf of the land owner I mean I don't want to hold someone up for like you're talking 120 days or 150 days you're getting up to half a year right yeah if they want to move and leave and you know we're I I don't blame them you know sure um go ahead S one thing I would actually say when it comes to people even when they're selling their land usually they have an ankling that they they have the notion they want to do this and they'll usually do it before like right for they retire so if we just kind of spread the information out it kind of gives everyone a head start at thinking about that process on top of the fact that they're trying to sell their land and give us the extra time I mean it does come down to them if if they don't want to be inconvenience they kind of have to look at all their options to begin with when they're going to sell their land to help the town to help us and help them at the same time so I'm thinking as long as we can get the message across that this exists we have a plan uh a motion of how long it takes and the processes and they understand this I mean it should work out in the end it's just no one knows the information that's the problem is we got to try and figure out how to get it so that people will actually read it understand it and follow through but what's our what's our Town's appetite yeah I think it's um like is it $250,000 a year we're willing to spend like the town like it would just be helpful to have those those Gates Right so we could tell someone hey look sorry we don't have the budget this year and if they can wait been great and you know think do we have a range for it yeah we don't have numbers like that that I'm aware of I mean again well can we put those in place though Community preservation has X Dollar in their account I me think it's last I knew it was like two million so so is it normally that it we find out through Adcom that someone's selling and then we have to go through preservation Community it can come a few ways and so again why this document will be helpful do and commitment to the document will be helpful um you know they might come to the assessor's office they might just kind of come into town hall and you know talk to whoever they come across uh might come through us um so it's not it's it's very kind of Loosey Goosey I think I want to say that I think that the town as an entity I think the appetite for conservation and preservation is growing um 101 15 years ago kind of wasn't too good but I think it's it's growing in your point Sage well taken that the the landowner uh I mean it works best when the landowner kind of has a heart for for preservation or conservation and and coming you know under they've been under one of these these programs you know it's a tax tax relief program and and uh you know they've been operating under certain guidelines for however many years presumably coming out of that they they kind of know you know what's what's what hope they remember depends on how long they've been here for for these folks like if we know we have dollars earmarked is there a prioritization process is it first come first serve you know what I mean like yeah that just may may help expedite I mean that what the meeting's going to be about when we get everybody together all oh so to kind of Define what your question I think right well it would be to have all of the commissions align right right conservation Adcom hey we heard this do we have the funding you know is it a property we would want to spend some of those funds on again just an expedited process I think would be respectful to the land owners I do I do agree with what you're saying and I think that it would be nice to have actually a live feed for the commissions to just know that number as it changes throughout the year too like some somehow we have just a tracker on our budget for that kind of purpose the only problem is we have to figure out if um we have that capability right now with our the way our system are set up and everything if that's uh something we can have access to and uh be functioned as I don't know if we have any texts here that or that Savvy to set up a server that could actually budget our money and show it or at least give us re reviews every so often so we have an idea of what's left to do an offer is there it would be nice is there a way we could integ like the Conservation Commission is the gatekeeper ultimately right like so they have the funds and they know what they've bought or chosen not to buy ultimately so that that's public record so I mean if we need someone to read the record you know right that should Sage to your point it should be fairly easy to look at hey look they have two million Al Whatever it is and you know we can go look at their or they can share with us we could ask yeah and they Comm you know if they communicate it to [Music] [Music] tell you the truth who if the buyer or the seller pays this but anyway and the real estate transaction 3% of anything over 100,000 hours goes into this F interesting that's some sometimes it's only one 1% or 2% so this is actually pretty good so now is this for the outright purchase of property only or is it also development right do we have a development right process as well yeah there's for Community preservation there's four areas what the law so it's preservation Recreation housing and what's number four but there's these four areas where the money okay and a certain amount I believe it's 10% has to go to each of those areas okay and then the rest you can if you want to put it all in housing you can oration you can as long as 10% goes to the each of these buckets you know so to speak so it's I'm learning I'm asking question because I'm tried to learn like how do we make it easier for the the seller right you don't want him to feel like it's a burden like how do we make it as expeditious as possible but like Sage said they're planning this more likely than not and they want to give the town the opportunity I just don't want them to feel like they're getting penalized because of giving us that opportunity either like yeah yeah I hear that that makes sense um let's see other just quick well that actually wasn't too quick but it was good com no no no no ask question the only the only way you find things out is to ask questions um uh for the community garden I just was mentioning to Jen that um you know it's been so wet but we're trying to get in there to to till the community garden uh Ron Chini has a trctor with a tiller and it's the tiller's hooked to the Tractor right now so he wants to do the tilling before we have a cleanup day and he switches it out for his um brush hog so hoping I mean it's supposed to rain quite a bit overnight tonight but maybe we do the Ching this Saturday if if weather doesn't hold out I mean it does it won't hurt anybody to have a one non- tilling year just saying I a lot of people don't mind the till to not till they'll do either or these days right and you guys you guys did just till at the end of the season yeah right it's been historically it's been uh you know spring and fall um so yeah and there's actually several people who specifically say they want their sites their plots not tilt because they're amending the soil and planting stuff that goes season to season like garlic um you know that kind of stuff so yeah I mean yeah you're right Sage it wouldn't be the worst thing if we didn't to it but I think Ron likes to do it it's a hobby we're only supposed to get an inch of rain yeah I don't know how wet it is over there but also the moisture may help make it easier it won't work the tractor as hard to till it either with the uh I was over there you know recently and the soil in the garden is not bad I mean it's it the the area around where there's lawn and it's soaking wet but the garden itself is like not too bad I'm not sure why because it can get through it I guess so so hard probably yeah it's goes through um and then last uh info thing um I wish I had the gavel so I can make some noise here but Sage your Wix expense for the website has been approved Oh yay so I I saw an email that said that they were questioning why we did a threee instead of a one year oh really I'm not sure I saw that yeah it should have came up on yours yeah that's that's what I said the first thing I saw I was like it's cheaper why wouldn't you we saved the Town Money literally and they're complaining about it it's like we not on the right Town we're supposed to be just spending it Loosely and Goosey and all that yeah Municipal I thought we did them a favor Municipal versus business right so anyway it's approved and so I'm not exactly sure when they're cut they cut the checks every two weeks so you should be in the next uh the next round Sage Post in the barbecue yeah yeah oh boy it'll be on Farm day yeah yeah there you go I can't make it well we're I can't make it either I'll be too busy come so anyway open Farm day I think it looks like you have this uh Jen this is my email after our last meeting that just kind of went through okay we we said this this this and this read this and great email thank you for the summary okay um Sage uh if you have access to your email it was on March 17th and uh so just to kind of recap um do I have new news about this um I did actually I got a a call from Inga today and she has you know last year for open Farm and she was instrumental and making it happen getting sponsorships and getting signs printed and she really worked hard on it and so she um has talked to a person who provides the the sort of the lawn signs and last year we did eight 18 by 24 inch signs and she's suggesting that for the um the points of entry into town you know gisto plaza where 57 comes in you know both ends of College Highway places like that that we get bigger signs uh 20 by 48 which would take two stakes to them up um so 4 I mean that's 4 feet long you know so that's a should catch some eyes you're not missing it yeah right would that be like before the event just to get people's attention oh right yeah so 10 of them maybe all three points of Entry yeah yeah yeah and she was thinking uh it might be 10 signs Al together if you think of coming from Gran B coming from Westfield coming from magam coming from Granville you know coming up the back way Mort mining Road I mean there a lot of Farmland out there right so it could be 10 signs um I should wait till Tom gets back but 10 signs with the metal stakes would be $24 each so that's $240 so that's not bad feel that's pretty pretty reasonable yeah oh yeah I expecting it to be higher yeah does that all come from Southwoods it's not it's somebody else I'm not sure the the woman's name is Marie Reagan I don't know the name of the company off the top of my head um agam right yeah I think so yeah so until Tom comes back you know we had said you know 10 to 4 last time uh hours can vary for different Farms um or um and we thought that we would organize the volunteers in two or three hour shifts so the volunteers can visit visit the Farms um we need to reach out to additional Farms so we had um last year we had um eight Farms plus the Historical Society we had blossoming Acres calib cowards Arnold's farm and sunflower and Firefly Fields sage still has PS PTSD from that Sox and Historical Society so I think we should you know find ways to uh where's my list that I made here um that goes back to our database doesn't it well it does actually yeah in the there's I apologize I should have shared this with you before G and but there is um from 2020 there is an open space and Recreation plan and it lists all the 61a properties the 61b properties and the APR wow properties there I made some notes but it's something like uh I'm just talking about reaching out to additional Farms okay because we had eight last year plus the Historical Society um this open space and Recreation plan from uh 2020 lists the 61a 61b and uh agricultural preservation restriction properties and there are a lot of them I mean 61a there's like 66 properties um a lot of them I mean I just kind of skimm through because a lot of them you like a lot of the farmers own different bits of property so Sox name shows up five six times John Wally's name is you know 25 times but you know allowing for that you get to like about 66 properties and 66 Farms interesting I'm kind of curious who who those folks are and they're it's 61a so they're supposed to have farming operations on that property to get that designation interesting that could be leasing to other Farmers that are and like Richard wooder like like I Rogers on there oh he is so he prob he definitely leases to Rockwood and Grandville yeah that is interesting I'm currently taking a mapping um um using AR um GE geographical information system oh yeah I have a class in it right now and it's um in databases and everything so I'm learning about this kind of stuff it's kind of cool like to be able to map it out and stuff and it's a lot but it's it would be interesting to find out how you can map all those land you know um well that's because Southwick has a GIS function website and I find it very hard to navigate I find it hard to get to the property I want to look at yeah yeah it's it's not the best system and that's I'm having trouble on my class working with it is okay so no school has issues with it too and I'm like I can't do this assignment you know but anyway but it be AI out there yeah yeah exactly I mean that would be much easier than that but yeah so we can um I can get this to you and I should have done it before so you can see these names some of them I know some of these properties are no longer in farming designations but I'm sure many of them are and so we could use that to reach out to farms and last year Marissa did a mailing to all these folks to see what their interest in the in the open Farm day that's a good idea too so I'm not sure if we should do that again do a mailing again or if it should be more of a kind of a personal reach out you know you know phone call you know stop by um she also said something about she updated the website too to have it more easy easily yeah I think for that survey you know you can fill it out right online right I actually just checked it out and uh she did a fabulous job I mean it's it's very user friendly you can fill out Lively on the site now for the whole registration and I guess it just emails so we just got to be looking at the email every now and then if someone actually fills it out but yeah no she did a very nice job yeah good well that sounds like Marissa yep go get her baby slow her down once one it's just nope so I'm guessing you know we had that little story in Southwoods last time about calling all Farmers you know please send your info I'm in this in the Adcom email I haven't seen anybody so I don't know if anybody's gone through the website stage um but you we need to need to do some Outreach um yes and we had last year um we had sponsors uh largely that Inga hotelling got for us uh high standard Transportation Terra Americana Brass Rail College Highway Insurance sonon Mason Insurance Westfield Bank b& tool VCA Animal Hospital the launch a few individuals and an anonymous person uh $1,500 and that paid basically for the advertising we did a lot of advertising that's great in um uh Southwoods Penny saer Westfield news hinga did say to expect the same amount because they all said they wanted to do it again yes right which is awesome that great and um a couple of other Publications we could think about oh so I just want to yeah so this is just minder this is our passport last year and we said we're going to do a passport again uh we have our Farm trail brochure that's out there with largely to same Farms but I think we probably should consider reprinting this dating it before the open Farm day okay and you know my thought being them additional Farms are going to want to be part of it um a couple of other oh we can also do a new Farm brochure like here's your new Farms that just came around as a separate brochure that is a good idea it kind of advertises hey look there are new Farms popping up maybe you should start one too join the the club yeah yeah that's awesome I had anyway there's a Westfield magazine um oh one of the magazines we we went to last year was a Go Local you might see that around it's tends to be largely Northern Connecticut but it does cover this area too we advertise there this is a similar kind of thing Sage I don't know if I can get you to see this I see it it's basically kind of a chamber of commerce kind of thing you know people advertise and many of the stories are many the articles are about the advertisers you know but it's it's kind of interesting um well here's a fun fact wait a minute on April 6th the Nirvana tribute experience is going to be at the Westfield Brewing Company down the street yeah I don't know how many Nirvana fans there might be but uh I was kind of surprised to see that anyway could we consider Westfield River Brewing as agricultural I think they do have some kind of agricultural license to be able to produce beer I think we would have to check trying to think would we maybe want to engage them I mean some of some of their activities although you know I'm not sure about their beer but that they pack in people for their craft fair right they get a lot of people to come in so if me we maybe engage them people who go around all day may want a place to go stop at so if they're involved you know know they do have some food sure oh yeah yeah that's the place right by the pool place Red Bar just P the big red bar used to be Chuck used to be Chu Bak house yeah okay that's such a New England thing oh yeah it used to be this yeah it's hard to keep restaurants alive true they just recently switched to just holding events they're not going to be you're not going to be able to go there during the week or on the weekend just for drinks or anything they're just doing like weddings and things like that oh really did not know that it's probably a lot of demand and work to do both yeah my friend worked there for a little while last summer and she said the only time she ever made money was when they had venue like weddings and things like that and regular days she really didn't make much so she had to leave H wow okay be interested if you looked who who owns that yeah yeah if West my question my point is does Westfield rent it and someone else locally owns it well that's a good question I don't know good question I could find out though Som essentially irrelevant just more of an interesting point yeah yeah oh Cindy if you can find that out that'd be good sure list address yeah um right can can I ask one other question so long Farm I'm just thinking like because our town generally thinks regionally right like south regional school do we know if Granville or tand or any of the the the hilltowns do anything like this and if they don't not that it's easy to get to any of them but would they potentially be interested in participating some way shape or form or you know if you know some other farm would maybe be interested in sharing some space on that day if it was not it wouldn't U cannibalize some of their offerings you know right different place just to engage them you know because I I again I'm always like on the Rockwood Farm thinking that because he leas is like my father-in-law's land like to me they are a true working farm different they don't have a storefront necessarily I mean I know they provide milk to Grandville scoop there but if we could somehow bring all of those in you know people may be like oh this is awesome like yes we have the summerhouse which I wouldn't want to take business from them either but the scoop people may be interested in going and getting dessert at the end of their day after doing a tour of the farms in Southwick I'm just trying to think if it may be something and it doesn't have to be this year it could be 2025 but is it something we may want to consider talking to the other towns and seeing what do they have with their Farmers be interested yeah i' I've thought about that too it seems like the geography might be you know we had a lot of comments last year here in southw couldn't get we couldn't get to every place you know that's why I was hesitant to bring it up yeah and that's partly why we want to make it more [Music] ours on on that point we we did talk about this even on the first Farm day and I pretty much said we should stick to Southwick at first just to get a handle on this just to see what it's like but I was always hoping that we would expand to other communities because we are supported by not just our own Community but the other communities around us do support us as well whether they have different types of storefronts farms growing different things and stuff I mean everyone actually does support each other in different ways so to include them would be awesome and I'd love to do it I think what we do need to do though is if we do start to try and Trek that we need to figure out where their Farms are that would be participating and seeing if we can have clusters so this way no people don't have to go to Every Farm but let's just make sure that there's enough farms in a little like cluster so they can experience at least that section and then next year another section and then next year another section kind of thing instead of trying to just go to Every Farm there is because that's never going to happen we have too many especially in the surrounding unless I think clustering would be a nice way to go unless we provide like helicopters there was a guy that lived here had AIC you that's an interesting idea and I think I'm a little bit just my top of my head uh idea here is maybe 2025 because we're still building our database to figure out what towns What towns what farms are in this town you know establishing do we need to do the same thing with Grandville towns have adcoms they do I'm yeah I'm not sure specifically which town I'm saying it may be interesting to reach out and offer hey can we attend your meeting or couple representatives and or if you wanted to come to ours so we could brainstorm and can we somehow coordinate even if you know like we we all understand it's impossible to go to Granville tand Southwick all those farms in any given day but could we do it in like a multi- weekend a multi-week thing whereas hey week one is Southwick week four like not back to back either but like integrated so we're kind of all cross marketing or communicating just to to help with that awareness again I know like Rockwood is truly a dairy farm they don't have a storefront or anything does he want to host people T probably not but can we go to the scoop and there's some history there that they learn about Rockwood Farm or what you know they do have live animals there or they did at one point I don't know if they do last year you know and there's a lot of history at that exact location about farming and why it is what it is today so are there I just don't know enough about Grand will I think your point about uh Rockland doesn't have a a storefront but that's part of the point here is that and as you've said Sage it's it's supposed to be educational and what we're I think what we're trying to do is get people behind the scenes you know like last year cowards Farm last year they show they showed their automated greenhouse and uh you know lenita took people on hay rides and so I think that you know not just go to your store like you always do like you always can just watch how actually works yeah very he's got to divert resources from whatever they're doing in August yep to host an unknown number number of people I mean obviously I'd be happy to go help you know like we could have people more volunteers um Y which we could talk volunteers at some point too and I'm definitely railing we already past 7:30 I was kidding in my C Granville used to have um on their town website they used to have an Adcom I don't know if they're still active or not but I can email and um the Ripley family and find out okay great oh hi hi Tammy I didn't I didn't realize you here interesting I agree that it would like what is their level of interest and how can we do it together you know and it doesn't have to be the same weekend obviously but well in the fall they have the Harvest Fair the grand Columbus Day indigenous yeah oh yeah it's nice and they have all kinds of stuff and I wonder if that's their big you know agricultural thing you but um I don't remember who it's by you know what I mean like I'm not sure either I was talking they have a lot of a lot of Crafters Some Farms from Connecticut going to Granville for that weekend Maple Corner Farm which is the Ripley family um they there of course and on Saturdays in the Summer she does the farmers market up in Otis so I know she's very busy that day on Saturdays um but I do know that certain places in South Excel including lenita of course sell their products and um Bita sells some ice cream from Grand R scoop the notch sells some ice cream from Grand R scoop so there is you know cross um cooperation there between Granville farms and their products being sold here as well fire department and the police department also help in the those days they the fire department head Chile oh that's right yeah yep oh so that's a big a big part of Southwick is Granville and tand right whether it's schools yeah you know parents coming in to pick up their kids they they probably hit so is there a way to kind of integrate it even on a farm day even if they they did a farm day the same day as ours but only they Market it up there and someone wants to go from here hey I saw the Farms last year in Southwick I want to try something different and I don't know just worth the conversation I guess ultimately I I know it Thrills the kids because my kids were seeing all their friends all over the place on Farm day they they had a blast and then I saw just all smiles and kids so I know they're all getting a lot of benefit out of it that's awesome I never thought of that that's yeah that's great and also in in um in Granville there's two or three properties I went to a wasn't a town meeting but it's like an information session there like a year ago March about um redeveloping farms for photo voltan you know solar yeah solar panels and how that can work you can um there's definitely pros and cons about it but there's three properties in Grandville that we're we're going to take advantage of this I believe and just some folks that would be an interesting thing to to see you know definitely yeah you know we see Sol solar panels you know driving down the road how do they work and these were going to uh swivel during the day follow the sun you know from east to west and then you plant your Christmas trees in between the solar panels you know that kind of stuff um so yeah so I think there's a lot of possibility there you know and maybe with the personal contact with with the wooders and you know Rockwood um maybe we kind of start yeah with that you know I just don't know how many farms are up there Grandville right a lot of rocks I know there's a few there's definitely a few a lot of Apple I know apple farms you pass all those there's probably what do they call them sugar Shacks for the maple syrup and all that stuff you see that everywhere food place a stoage but how do we leverage that can we help can we help them well can you know like you're saying cross selling you know if you know blossoming an doesn't do maple syrup could they maybe get some from Granville just to open turn you know I guess a good spot to start would be the edcom if they have yeah so Tammy um if you could find out about the Granville Adcom I mean we've Tammy in particular has looked into other adcoms a couple of times and other adcoms uh as far as I understand are kind of sleepy you know they're not doing much um so they don't got the the whole cool setup of our team that's right that's right uh so maybe I mean if we out you know who knows that might be a little spark of some kind maybe we can bring them out of hibernation there you go there you go who got the prod start poking them um Tom you mentioned uh volunteers we had 35 last year oh wow and so if we're thinking about yeah including um 11 uh National Honor Society kids it was it was pretty awesome um but if we're going to be doing shifts I do have a suggestion for that we're g to do shifts we're going to need twice as P just throwing that out there son my son goes to Pope Francis and freshman and sophomores need 25 hours of community service all freshman and sophomores and then when you go to to be a junior I think it like jumps to 50 so we're reaching out to the school so there I'm just saying there could be an opportunity there you know um yeah where if we need to fill that it might be an e I'll say an easy way but also to be outside versus like inside somewhere it may appeal to some high school age students yeah um yeah so 11 National Honor Society but you have like 400 kids at Pope as well that M need like it's a requirement like you need it like there's a form so the only thing I would say is we'd have to probably divide the emails for approval of this because you get an email where you have to confirm it oh okay so it it would be an additional burden on whoever that is but I'm happy to help with that um obviously I could my own yeah like just because it documents it goes into a system and then they say okay well off document for them to use for the school just an idea I mean we could probably also reach out to St Mary's because they probably have a similar requirement in Westfield yep and it so happens Dan Cook coaches one of the baseball teams there so I mean really any you know Westfield schools for Honor Society have probably a similar requirement right so as long as we try to try to get into the guidance office and say hey there's an opportunity here these are the shifts and I I just we'll have to figure out a way to capture that's awesome yeah Sage Sage this is where you say but wait the Westfield fair is the same weekend as our oh they have volunteer opportunities yeah but we're more fun we're selling fun and educ yeah so it's just an idea because I thought about it after that knowing my son like so Andrew does the Southwood basketball game he goes and does it in the evenings for a week okay you know they get hours for that so why not for yeah and of course the um another logistical thing is you know kids need to be with an adult right uh in terms of we like break up the volunteers with the like one like a couple for per adult or something well if we have a sign up yeah and we just we just have to say you know sometimes parents will just stay anyway yeah driving kids are there drop them and having to come back and pick them up or whatever so so you're saying probably like 60 plus volunteers if need uh last year at the Historical Site uh Dave McWilliams who was on conservation at the time was there with two of the National Honor Society kids you know so that's great he ordered pizza for him so you know Andrew just saying my son Andrew goes to Pope he could probably recruit teammates from soccer or basketball or whatever that need those hours too and say hey come on over and you know if it's at our you know Rogers Place yep guaranteed hours well and the parents Noah so that makes it easier on that side of it so yeah right anyway it's an idea I could help try to facilitate the communication sure um we know the GU we obviously talked to the GU counselor at Pope so we could I could chat with him yeah absolutely out what's the preferred method of communication and offering that up as an option yeah but we'll probably Sage up we'll probably need to leverage your know on how if people did want to is there form we could do on the website that we could have people submit [Music] or application type thing or just so how do we track it because say say there's like 400 kids and 100 kids want to volunteer like how do we how do we manage all of that you know we need to know the numbers versus all of a sudden kids are showing up at different Farms you know and how would we assign so just maybe Sage think about maybe what we could do you don't have to have anything like now or even next week yeah we got yeah I'll figure out some kind of form and then maybe we can uh do what Marissa already did with the uh registration make a separate way to fill it out just on the website where it shoots us out an email yeah and then if we could give the pope guidance counsel or the the address we could have people Express expressions of interest if they know the date and time and then at least we know and we could follow up after like later on be pop Francis kids who are like on this side of the river west of Springfield yeah exactly West Springfield I'm thinking Westfield Agawam Southwick Westfield that that's yeah those are the towns I'm I'm anticipating would want to right participate yeah and we do have some time I mean you know August will come fast but but we've done it once so we're ahead of the game and we've done it once last double the volunteers so if we could if we could have the volunteers kind of locked or semick down you know we gotta be careful with that because kids change their mind sometimes you know so we we gota watch how and when we ask ask too early do we have I just got tickets can't go yeah yeah do we have like a date in which we need everything to be like completed and ready to go kind of thing for like finalized date yeah last year I did a kind of a tasks and timeline oh okay oh that's cool kind of list and I'll do that again um you know there's you know so for example with advertising they have they have deadlines you know so you got to get it if you want it in this month's publication you got to get it you know that kind of thing of course yeah okay it's a Sunday right yes yes um so Sage to your point people like committing and then not not showing up or uncommit that's late in the summer and that's probably a week where people are home now getting ready for school right that that's my guess but School hasn't started yet no I know but pop is probably that a week is my guess depending on high schoolers that could be the partying phase too for the older high schoolers for a sophomore I was sophomore I remember my years oh boy I can't wait to have a hang out with you and hear your stories then the uh the freshman in sophomores might be a little bit of a captive audience but the Juniors and Senior have their driver's license to right you double the 50 hours that's a lot of hours you got to figure out so so I'll reach out to the the guidance counselor at po Lori and I will check with him great and I will check with Dan um to do the same with same Marys okay good good good um what else on Farm day [Music] oh uh another thing that Inga mentioned today um Economic Development Commission of which she's chair is is going to be getting signs kind of like lawn sign type signs type so signs uh to put if with r okay of course at the table like the registration tables at the various Farms you know people come and they get their passport and their stickers and all that kind of thing and have these signs at the tables with a QR code uh that takes folks to the EDC website for a list of restaurants it's like you're saying people might want to go to grandle scoop and get an ice cream at the end of the day so I think that's a great okay yeah can can I make just slight suggestion so QR codes are great for people comfortable with technology but we may want to consider having a list of also of all the restaurants just in case um yeah I don't want to be a age just not everyone has technology some people stay away from it I know my father-in-law you know he'll he'll you know I have to have my phone he's not such a fan so if you could give them a list hey these are restaurants within Southwick that are pretend ATC historically has had a little two-page folder kind of thing IDE to have like a map of restaurants or something kind of like that that would be really good I want to say that they're gonna work on that I I believe that is something they're gonna be that that was mentioned at one of their meetings in the beginning that they were gonna try and do something like that that would be great like include it in like um okay well and and what we could do to that point is obviously I'd love to focus on the QR code so we just hold them back and and if someone asks that oh yeah we do have that versus because I'd hate to have them out and then no one does the QR code and then they're just taking the paper yeah you just hold it and if someone says hey what is this oh it's a list oh you know I'm not comfortable with techn okay here we go hey want I have two pairs of you want the paper one is $1.95 sound like little side Maps Sage that was a dumb and dumber reference have you do you remember that movie yes I do I second one killed it my hands are sweating and he had no gloves yep man okay well this has been great I think we've uh I mean there's going to be a million details as we get there but this has been really helpful to about good ideas you guys as always our other coming thing is a historical society presentation and they have um as my notes here so they want to do uh farming in Southwick past present and future and actually they I just saw today I I started a flyer which they asked me to do and then they took it and I kind of changed it but I was I was going for past here's an ad from a 1928 you know newspaper and and there going to be the open Farm day from last year and then something for the future that's why I was asking you about the the digesters but they've already done this they're going to hand it out at a meeting tomorrow night so not going to lose any sleep over it anyway so here's I'll just pass that around see well even if we do get a chance to go up there between now and then we could put it into the the the slideshow oh for sure oh yeah just following up on our text messaging um Roger's going to reach out to Richard tomorrow okay and we'll coordinate a time where you and I or just you or just me can go up there and I can do some pictures I've been up there before like previously yep um and I could take photos and all that stuff and yeah I mean if it works out schedule wise yeah I'll when he knows he's available you and I could just go we could meet in center of town here drive up there um but he doesn't think there would be any issue with that Richard he thinks would be agreeable yeah oh okay excellent I mean Richard really is quite an amazing gentleman from what my father-in-law you know from his discussions with and he's been very deeply involved in agriculture in Massachusetts generally okay for a very very long time time so yeah he he has a lot of history if we wanted to pick his brain I'm sure like if we come with a list of questions he would be able to answer some and give us some pretty good feedback if you wanted to chat with them yeah okay yeah so yeah I think uh kind of to that point I think there's going to be no shortage of information to include in this presentation um oh I actually that makes me think um Angie what did I do with it she did a um she she used a chat GPT to do some research and I meant to email this to to you guys and I will but um so she this chat gbt she came up with a whole kind of overview of you know from the 18th century to now so I'll give you and I'll email it to you too and use to Sage and tamming of course but just for um that I don't think we can include all of this in the presentation but it's great w you know kind of framework or something so that's really good and or you need them back no you can have that yeah um for the [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] um and I think so would get together some information about the past like you know some of what Angie has here this is great yeah very good and then I thought for the present as we talked about last time for the present would be a time to talk about us the Adcom and what we're doing and we got 12 members and we're getting the farmers together and holding workshops and all that good stuff that could be a lot of what we talk about for the present and the future um you know stuff like you know there's a lot of lot of Grants out there for sustainability types of things there's new um you know the farmers have to plant new crops at different times to adjust to the conditions which they've always had to do U but it's changing fast you know so and then the thing like that digestor that a digestor is a um it acts actually it acts like a cow's stomach and so you put all this Farm waste in there I you probably going to talk about this more than me time but put all this Farm waste in there and it generates methane like the cows do but it captures the methane that's amazing and that can be used as an energy source and so there's a there's U one place is Barstow Farm in Hadley yeah yeah and they've they've got a huge one and they are actually sending electricity back to the grid Richard do as well yeah yeah they were in the Smithsonian the that was in the magazine I was like w that's pretty cool regarding that system along those lines Richard actually or Rockwood so I think theyve like a one and a 3 million gallon like tanks for manure but what they also do is he gets I think the Friendlies Ice Cream that's bad oh oh yeah interesting because we're in no food waste State now so he gets like trucks coming in and dumping food in and it mixes it all together and ends up with the same result with what BT was just saying that's amazing where it creates the methane and you know um takes the methane out of it you still end up with waste but it's not it's still great fertilizer yeah the smell isn't there it's you know the emissions and again I we'd have to confirm with him but what my father-in-law told me is that it Powers the entire Farm now that's amazing and he's able to sell back to the grid yeah so which is a great you know a winwin for a farmer you know for sure abely yeah that's great you're turning waste into energy yeah instead of just piling it up over in the corner of the well we always joke around like this year it was a little like not cold enough but my my wife's birthday is January 8th every year Richard comes to spread manure on her birthday what again my father-in-law like on fields behind your house so I'm like whatever she calls in the afternoon I'm like your birthday presents here from Rockwood that's great it's like quar million gallons of manure that's funny so it's incredible though I mean just it would be great I think to even just have like that is like to me a true working farm with no storefront and there just they're their back is against the wall day in and day out trying to figure out how to keep their equipment running feed the you know feed the the cows with low milk prices and higher feed costs higher energy costs everything how how do they make it all work you know it's amazing what these these people all of the people not just Richard I just know that story better than most but everyone their backs against the wall with the inflation mean yeah that's crazy give them a lot of credit for sure yeah and the weather well the other thing too there's a question that like I I I didn't realize this but at the end of the year apparently there's the ability of I don't know what the guidelines are but they can the farmers can go back to the government I don't know if it's federal or state and show them their p&l this is what it cost me this is what I made and the government helps fund that Gap so they're not extremely profitable now I I I don't know a lot about it but I've heard that this is something that's out there I don't know if it's certain size of farm or certain type I want to say that mdar actually covered that in an article because I could have sworn I remember reading something of what you're describing it was last year I'll see if I can find it which I'm fully supportive of by the way like these guys you know like to break even if that's all they're getting and they can it keeps them in business [Music] [Music] [Music] like the reason I think that's interesting too is if there's some someone considering starting a farm if it doesn't have to be at a large scale is that something that may convince them that this is a worthwhile Endeavor to get that help even for the first few years right that's the hardest part probably there's there's actually programs to help you start a farm too there's actually a few grants out there for that maybe that's something we could consider in some future like Library session right like hey if you're interested just come hear what they have to say there are these these opportunities or options of of money and grants or loans like low interest loans Yeah we actually have quite a bit of that information right now on our website RSA was very thorough okay sorry I proved my ignorance of not looking in depth at the website sorry Sage it's a lot of good work didn't no Marissa did Marissa did most of it she uh she she literally tackled thing I kind of feel like she's making it her second baby poor Elliot oh man okay well again great um you know input and ideas you guys the other thing our agenda is about the our FY 24 expenses and I'd like to put that into our next regular meeting because there's a lot of things that we when more of us are here you know you know dance looking into the pump for the community garden and the fence post and the um I think we talked a little bit about banners so we should uh next time really pin that stuff down and how you know how much do we think so we can start the POS going and you know get it uh be sure to get it in this this year you know and then um there's a couple FYI things I just learned mdar is going to have their first agricultural resource Fair on Friday April 12th so if you're interested it's 9: to three so it's all day so you have a job that's not good but um you can go to the website and check that out and also um cisa is doing a a farm tour of their Hydro hydroponic Farm uh pause and pivot Farm in Williamsburg on April 18th at 3 um that's another uh future there's at least a couple of farms I've read about recently they're that are 100% hydroponic W one agan grows I think it's just I think it's flowers that's like another thing that's because that's no soil just water right just water right wow right technology that's just you know there's so many different ideas out there it's great you know okay um so that next meeting as I mentioned about the expenses uh Wednesday April 10th is our regular meeting so we can um address those things and I'm sure we will continue to talk about open Farm day and uh in the presentation and we'll have to see you may not know right now but um as this little flyer here you know it's going to be Bert Hansen and friends so I'm hoping all my friends will be able to show up my calendar do you need any support for that or any any just any volunteers or yeah I'm not sure yet but you know I'm kind of putting all this information together you know and one one quick note Tom they do the this is at the southw Congregational Church yeah no AV huh no AV no AV although I did learn uh they have a screen they do have a screen you know that pulls down kind of thing so we need to dig up a projector and a la everybody's got a laptop I can likely help with the projector you think so yeah that would be awesome uh and then we can just I me I can bring my laptop or you can you know whatever so I'll definitely have the iPad or that video okay um we let let you and I can coordinat or whoever else is going to be there sure depends what you want the rest of the materials to be if it's PowerPoint then a laptop of someone's will be required but the projector can likely handle either or we'll just have to plug unplug and then sure present yeah uh I'm a little bit thinking just again as we're talking um you know there's a dinner 6:30 7:30 and then presentation at 7:30 so maybe the the slideshow maybe runs kind of like during dessert kind of thing um again everybody's thinking about Farms um that would be interesting B I'm just trying to think like as everyone's gearing up and maybe it's not for this one yeah but are there do any of the Farms that participated in the farm day have historical pictures I have historical pictures just because that's all I have right but it would be interesting if blossoming Acres Cal like you know obviously some of the newer Farms wouldn't have that unless they're they took over a farm that used to be there yeah but it would be interesting because then could we integrate it into that and then make it truly more because they're going to be very minimum of pictures that were ped right we'll have a lot of present and maybe some future just because we're gonna go see Richard or whatever we can you know you know take some photo it just may be interesting if people have some historical pictures or if we could go online somewhere I don't know if their website if they have websites I mean yeah you know or how we could potentially reach out to them to get those submitted to us or shared with us or whatever you know yeah Sage if you're talking we can't I I am not hearing you oh no are NOP I'm just folling along okay sorry I just didn't I wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything yeah I was reading something also okay just just an idea yeah great idea you know yeah because then we could put those together like if I say I got blossoming anres I could put historical and present like just in the same order and we could highlight blossoming Acres or Firefly or Cali or whatever you know like I could do with Rogers just because I own all those pictures yeah or have access pictures that the database could help with like if you know you have all these emails and everything you know hey do you want to share any of your pictures for upcoming presentation you know um I know just shoot them an email and they could reply with an attachments or something yeah um I think that would be cool versus focusing on Purely the present right because there's always a story for everything everyone and of course yeah yeah that's what it's all about anyways Historical Society you know just like and we have a month so I mean even even if it's just like two pictures even if it's just two pictures and we could you know because you can always manipulate a picture and put put a date if they had a Circa yeah you know circuit 1975 and then you get into the new like 2023 Farm day pictures you know like yeah just because I think it would be more interesting to this audience sure is just the modern because such a heavy you know all those pictures are heavily present you know past well it is a historical society yes exactly exactly's what's nice is we're also now pretty much cataloging every year for the Historical Society with Farm day because we're showing progression every year there you go you know what I'll do though like I'll have to ask permission of the author of those books but I gotta see if I have time but I'm pretty sure I could scan the pictures from the books in history books yeah yeah CU they have pictures of the farms and mostly um I have one of those books I don't have both but mostly they say there's a chapter on farms but it shows you the farmhous mostly you don't really see the fields yeah you don't it's more words yeah yeah great well sorry a lot of ideas but no like like deliverable right yeah we'll get we'll get to that part we'll get there it's like you said we have time but it seems like we're closer closer already in April yeah okay um unless anybody else has anything almost go to bed make a motion to adjourn second second okay those in favor hi is Tammy still there