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Recreation Commission Meeting

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You're supposed to be...
What?
No, one of each.
I call to order
the North Hampton
Recreation meeting of Wednesday,
September 2nd, 206.
Start. Is there a motion
to accept the August meeting minutes?
So moved.
So moved.
I'll second.
Great.
Let's move on to
citizens' comments.
We will jump into
old home day review.
Thank you, Al. I can start the conversation there anyway.
I sent out to all the commission members, sort of a recap of all the events, so we could sort of have things, thoughts and ideas fresh in our mind to bring to this meeting.
So I guess I would probably kind of like to start there.
I mean, I could run through them, but I think I'd rather just see what members who were there thoughts were on things, what they thought worked well, what we could do.
to improve things and so forth.
I think it went well, overall.
I think it went really well.
I don't know.
I'm going to make a recommendation, but I don't have any solutions or any answers or any ideas about it,
but I think we need to have some activities for some tweeners.
So maybe the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade, or something like that,
so they're more involved versus just coming to the fireworks.
We do focus a lot on everyone else, but those in-between kids that, you know,
11 to 15, kind of get left behind, and then they get dragged out, or encouraged by their
family to go to the fireworks.
So I don't know.
It's something we could think about.
It's just something to get everybody involved.
So it's not, well, the scavenger hunt, you'd have to have a car.
It depends, yeah.
And that involves the parents.
I'm thinking it's something that if they were able to be here, we're going to corral you all in
one place, the parents don't have to sit there and manage because they're going to be
responsible enough to do it, or they can hang out.
and be around too.
It's just something to get everybody involved in the town.
Just an idea.
I think it's a great idea.
Just a thought, because I was just thinking about my 15-year-olds.
I sat there and was like, I just want to go to the fireworks.
There's nothing else that I want to do.
There's nothing that's really geared towards me.
Having a 15-year-old, what do you think he would really be interested in?
That's another good question.
That's a great question.
It's hard to get them to do anything.
I couldn't agree more.
No, give me a screen.
Yeah, well, there's got to be something.
I mean, there could be some sort of, like we do with the little kids where we have it at the school,
where there's just a fun little carnival, like, activities and competition.
We could do something at a bigger scale for the older kids.
Maybe it's, I don't know, maybe there's the basketball room at the tennis court.
There's the basketball hoops at the school.
There's stuff we could, you know, just come up with something.
The kickball would actually be, like, really.
fun.
I think that, yeah, I think that's a great idea.
They love the basketball team, so something active like that.
Yeah, I agree.
Just something to get everybody involved.
But it was fun.
The food truck was amazing.
You were doing a great job.
Yeah.
It's great.
I mean, everybody I spoke to is just really happy for the quality of that.
And the music.
Music was great.
It was wonderful.
I think the town choir was one of the best things there that night.
I loved it.
It was just great.
It was a fun activity for the 250th, I think, it tied that whole celebration together.
And, you know, thank you for doing that.
It was just great.
What are you talking about?
Yes, you do.
For the 5Ks so that we don't forget, one, I think it went great this year.
And I feel like each year with the time clock, we're getting better.
But I think what we could do is when it starts.
I don't know why we've never done this.
literally doing math, like on the go.
Why aren't we just clicking start on the time stopwatch?
Is that what it is?
And so then you can see it's been 24 minutes instead of being like, okay, here was a start time,
here's the end time, and we're doing subtraction, like as people are coming in.
That's my suggestion.
That's something that was asked if we could do that for next year.
Which I thought was, it's on there.
There's a stopwatch capability.
Just have to figure out how to use it.
The puzzle I heard, I heard, we're great.
some great responses from the puzzle activity.
I wasn't here for that, so I don't know for those that were here, what they thought.
I think everybody enjoyed it.
The family, the one, you know, is their puzzle fanatics, and they did a great job in record time.
But everybody had fun.
I think it was a great activity.
A lot of fun.
The trolley ride was amazing.
Yeah.
It was awesome.
It was just so much great information, and we had a bonus to go into the church because the groundskeeper was there.
But everyone enjoyed it a lot.
So thank you.
We're coming about that.
The feedback on the trolley ride was great.
The friends of the library who put the event together, you know, we're really happy that it sold out.
And we did the registrations and all of that.
So they're very appreciative.
It sends a very nice car to us as well.
And, yeah, Rob got rave reviews.
Rob South Worth.
I did all the narration.
We knew he would.
Yeah, it was great at that.
Absolutely.
That went really well.
And they were really happy with that.
And that kind of, as we talk about growing the event, the idea and hope is that as many different
entities want to be involved in as possible.
And one of the things like I've talked about the past of doing potentially like a fireman's
breakfast that we used to have in the other town type of event, are those kinds of things
getting teens involved.
Because there were some activities for teens to do.
But, you know, you have to find what that is as well.
So other organizations, whether it's PATH, it's the fire, whatever, kind of coming together.
So it's not an event merely hosted by the Recreation Department, a town event that, you know, how can we get involved in this kind of thing.
Is it possible to do, like, a different history trolley tour next year?
Well, and I spoke to them immediately after that.
And they said, we definitely want to do something next year with whatever.
And I said,
that honestly, the trolley ride could become part of old, long-day tradition.
You're only doing it once a year.
It's sold out.
Right.
The word of mouth is spectacular.
Like you the third one.
I think that they, yeah, I think that they're kind of hot on that right now.
But a different area of town would be wonderful to learn.
Like more history for people who didn't do it.
Part of that history, the Little River Church has a couple of times now had an event around Halloween.
where they celebrate the people who are buried at the Little River Cemetery.
I mean, that has been so well received.
I wonder if we could somehow fold that in.
We have so many cemeteries in town.
And so many, I mean, I don't know how many people know the cottons and, you know all the other people who have so much history here in town.
That could be an interesting ad to have a cemetery tour to celebrate.
the history of Northampton.
I think that's a great idea.
I mean, even four corners cemetery.
I wonder even who's buried there.
That's 250 years old.
So I think that'd be kind of pulled to do something like that.
And I do want to share it.
I told Joe this afterwards, but at the park when we had the ice cream
and I was looking out, the music was playing, the lights, like the, it was starting to get
dark.
And I didn't see anyone on a device.
I saw kids playing kickball like a pickup game.
And other groups,
and listening to music, eating from the food truck.
And it was like a Sandlot moment.
If anyone's seen the movie, it's just like a great old school type of night,
like a 90s kind of night where people are just out,
having a good time with their community.
It was really nice for that moment.
Playing volleyball, some kids, cornhole on the side.
I was like, neat to see like the younger kids coming up.
I remember my kids were there.
I felt like it was yesterday.
And I'm like, oh, my gosh.
Like, we were those.
parents and now they're older, they're 15, 13.
So it was cool.
I thank you for sharing that because that's sort of what it's what it's about.
Like it's not a, let's bring the circus into town and sit back and circus in town now.
It's trying to bring community together in ways that some of the stuff is old-fashioned,
corny, however you want it.
It's old home day.
Exactly.
Like, that's the theme.
Yeah.
And, um,
You know, and I'm not, because this, this comes up at times as well.
I'm not married to a specific date.
It's, it's tricky to find that date because you're always going to get into, oh, that's a big vacation.
Well, it's in the summer.
So it's going to be.
You can slide it closer to Labor Day and back to school.
We might have issues there or closer to the fishermen's fee, rather the seafood festival.
So, Fisherman's Feast, I was at the St. Anthony's Feast,
this weekend as well.
So, again, I'm not married to any specific date.
I always want more people than we have.
Not that I'm dissatisfied with turnout in a lot of areas, but, you know, I always want more.
There's always a lot more to draw from.
So, you know, I'm open to suggestions regarding that.
We also win a golf tournament towards the end of September.
So, but I'm certainly open to any of that.
I feel like the time.
is pretty good between all of our other events.
It's spaced out where it's not crowded up on the golf or the previous events.
It was just that brown family vacation that we had to work around.
Yeah.
Well, I think, you know, the second Saturday and every August, people get to know that.
I've done that now for a number of years.
I think that's probably a good thing to keep.
And I know a lot of people who ran the 5K last year didn't run it this year because it was so hot.
This year was?
Yeah, this year.
They didn't because it was so hot.
I thought it was pretty.
reasonable. I mean, just because it is.
We weren't running.
Yeah.
It was muggy.
It was hotter than last year.
Yeah.
It was muggy.
Oh, it was a lot hotter than last year.
It made the powder stick that much.
The one it did hit you, and the one of the arena kept being like, take the water.
It's too hot.
He would run after every person.
He was saying, it's really hot.
That was a question.
A lot of people were asking the color stop that, um, the color stop that, um, um, on pine
if there was more water.
So me, we might want to think about that.
So having a second water stop or having it later.
In the first mile, it's a little early in a 5K.
Or if you're going to have it in the second stop or wherever we have it, have a trash can, too.
Because I saw people that were running with it because they didn't want to just drop it on the ground.
And then I saw a stack that was towards by the police officers of cops.
I'm like, oh, okay, this is really nice.
People are kind.
Because most of the time, people who run it, just throw it.
Yeah.
And that's the hard part about a water stop.
So it was requested.
I know Sandra had a bunch of people asking, do you have water?
Do you water?
So.
For advertising, one other thing that someone had mentioned was, I know in other times they've had a banner, like across the road.
So I don't know if that's something we could, it would cost a little bit.
But to have it, I don't know, month before, this is coming up.
And we could be able to change the date if, you know, would each year, it's always on a different date.
But to have it right across Atlantic, you know, the signs, there were more of them.
But sometimes they were hard to see in different locations.
And I'm just thinking about a banner crossing the road.
A banner like driving underneath it.
Really?
Just to the day part, again, that goes to if we always have that in trench to the second Saturday.
that's always kind of the date that can stay permanently on a banner type of.
Oh, to say second Saturday?
Oh, yeah, sure.
Would there be issues, do you think, with having it on Atlantic?
You might know this.
Yeah, you'd have to talk to, I think, the fire department and DPW.
Okay.
And you might also need to talk, we might need to talk to DOT.
It's just a matter of, obviously, the height.
Because it's a state road?
This one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, so we might just need to, just need to.
But not a planning, zoning type thing, were it signage across the road or anything?
No, because it is a town event, so the town would be immune from that kind of temporary signage.
And as long as we didn't have it out for, you know, six months, I really think it would be limited to what DOT fire and possibly DPW would have.
to say. But three easy phone calls to make.
Oh, you want to make them?
I just offered.
Cool.
I assume that I just offered.
Thank you. I have no idea. I'd have to do research and all this stuff.
I'm on it.
Thank you.
And I would just ask Jim, if you want to talk specifically about the events down at Dearborn that led
us to, in addition to the town crier and separation station.
Sure.
Yeah.
So, time capsules.
So we've got some stuff.
I know we're live on TV, so it's kind of cool.
So, outside of the pens and pencils and things, there are a lot of cool things in here.
I mean, what I don't want to do is open, obviously, we don't want to open up anything that's in here.
We want to have it to be a surprise.
But we had a lot of contributions, and there are photos.
Thank you.
These are just for the wreck.
One thing we do have, the skillet is in here.
So, you know, I thought maybe what we could add to the skillet is what happened and who won
because we know who that is.
So I thought maybe if we could put a...
In half far it went.
I don't know if we want to keep this in here or if you want to keep this as something that, you know,
keep this for the rec department, but have some kind of memorialized that this was the first time we had a skillet toss.
but you have
you have cards
and you have
photos. What's interesting about this photo is
there's a receipt on this
from Shaw's and what's
highlighted is they bought blueberries
and how much blueberries
cost in 2026.
I'm not sure if that'll be more or less
in 25 years.
We've got, you know, a shirt from the
rec department.
We have
throwback
gave a beer.
It's not just a beer.
This is a beer that is
a special breed, a rare breed,
that's 10.4% alcohol.
So in 25
years, this is
going to be, I don't know what. No one knows what the
heck this is going to be, including throwback,
and they want that to be a test.
Right, so this is going to go in something
more than just plastic, because
I don't know what's going to happen.
One thing I can tell you was
So we have an annual report, the annual report from the town of North Hampton for this year is in there.
You know, there's a lot of cool things.
There's a public hearing notice from the planning board.
We have the agenda from the select board.
We have, this is the letter that the fourth graders sent to their state reps to try to get Lakeland of Pisaki
named as the state lake.
and the letter they have in there and the bill and their attempts.
So there's a lot of really cool things in here, Mike,
and why it's still in this is it box,
is because, no, I don't think we should just close right now,
close this.
I was just like I was hoping with one or maybe two more meetings
or maybe even after the golf tournament or something,
let's just keep this open for whatever the board thinks
it's an appropriate amount of time.
And then we'll seal it up.
I have the container to seal it up.
This is the, if this is, thank you for putting it out.
And you brought the feather pen or the quill?
I think you have one.
Yeah, you.
Oh, sorry, John.
We have a whole bunch of fantastic signatures on here.
What I would like to do with the approval of the board,
and I didn't want to do it without asking, and now they can't hear me because the mic is covered,
and that's okay.
I thought maybe going to a select board meeting
and had the board, the select board signing this.
I thought making sure that all the members of the rec commission are on here,
you know, but we have quite a number of signatures that are on there.
I think the coolest cars have many kids.
We're like, what is this that I'm writing with?
I don't think kids' signatures and like the blocks that are in here are so genuine.
It's just in 50 years, they can go find the signature.
I don't think I'll be finding mine.
Yeah, it's really cool.
I think we have created something that's going to put it here because it's rather loud.
We'll just lay it down for a second.
I think we've created something here that in, and again, I'm going to throw it out,
we really haven't set the time for when it's going to be open.
But in at least 25, but maybe 50 years, as the town crier said,
I'm not sure that anything.
of us will be here, and I'm not sure how many of the people who sign that are going to be here.
But I think once they know that this exists, it might trigger something that they come back
and say, I sign that.
Or, you know, that's my picture.
That's me in there.
And I think that'll be really, really cool.
So.
Yeah, as we mentioned, we're alive tonight, so maybe we can reach out and tell people if they're
they're interested still in contributing anything to it, they can certainly get.
a hold of me at the office or any of the smiling faces in the room, and we can gather some more
stuff as well. When's their next meeting? Next meeting is the October, so October 7th. So they
could bring it. They could bring it at the October 7th meeting. Sure. I think what would be neat is
when it is closed, we could have a picture in plaque put in the library. So it's like a place where
even if you are not here today or this year, then if you're wandering the library, you can see
and be like, oh, time capsule, and just put the date and estimated an opening.
Interesting idea. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like a countdown?
Maybe.
Have we decided where we will place it?
Yes. And I'm not sure that we want to make that public.
Probably not, but I didn't know what was decided.
Yeah. Yeah. Some place that nobody ever goes, but that no one will ever forget.
And it's definitely safe.
It's definitely safe.
Yeah. And who would have that information readily available when it's time to open it?
You.
Or it will be.
So in 25 years, at least, well, there needs to be some, we need to create, and I think I'm looking at you, Joe,
I think we need to create that trigger at the town that no one ever forgets that this is here,
because in all honesty, in 25 years, or, you know,
you know, who's still going to be here?
We don't want to forget that it's, that it's going to be where it is.
It's not going to be buried.
It's going to be somewhere where somebody might not trip over it, but they'll see it.
I wonder if there's something you could buy that is like a countdown box,
that you could set 50 years, and it just rings at 50 years.
It's like a massive battery.
What did leak?
Yeah.
What if we saw everything?
What if we sold the library?
I'm sorry?
What if we sold the library, somebody in the library, and it's always just something there that they know,
and they know this is what it is and where it is.
Great idea.
That's a great idea.
The library is a...
Yeah, they'd be really good at it.
Or the town office.
Yeah.
A boat.
You could do both.
So there's a background.
Town clerk, town office, town library, and this way we have triple covered ourselves
to make sure that in 50 years, I mean,
You know, do we have a number?
Do we have a...
Is it going to be password encrypted?
Like, you know, like...
Would that be possible?
Yeah, it's not going to be that bad.
I may have to put some duct tape on it.
That's the most encryption I'm going to put.
And most of us in this room know how quickly 50 years goes by, believe it or not.
Yeah.
Several of us in this room.
So I don't think that's too long.
Thanks for looking at me that whole time.
Yeah.
I think anything less is kind of quick for something like this.
Okay.
I think, yeah.
To make it interesting that, oh, this was 50 years ago.
And the nice thing about it being 50 years, it would be 300 as well.
Yeah.
So doing it 50, 100, that would make sense.
Yeah.
And that way you get that 300th anniversary as well.
Great point.
I like it.
Yeah.
So, so kudos to all of you and everyone who made their contributions here.
So we'll keep it open for at least another month?
Yeah.
And we can sort of revisit it and invite people again at the October 7th meeting.
Okay.
Maybe have everything in by that evening and then we can move on that.
Okay.
Great.
There's your update on the time capsule.
Thank you.
Thanks again, Jim.
Great job to do it, by the way.
Anything else on the old home day review?
Thank you, everyone.
Oh, boy.
That was the beer.
We'll move on to the golf tournament, which is upcoming.
Yep.
So we know the date.
We know what's going on.
Cam and I have been meeting, and we're just going to one try to determine who can definitely be there that day and just kind of quickly where we stand on the stuff.
So as of right now,
We have 17 golfers that are registered, and we have three Eagle sponsors, which are Mason's Financial Group.
R. B. Allen is back, as well as Cactus Graphics, are the three sponsors that we have received.
I have reached out to Cortland Builders as well as HCP, HVACAC, HVAC, as well as,
Wayne Body Shop, Rain Body Shop has given a verbal yes, and I did just receive a call from them
earlier today, so I do have to go pick up their paperwork to see what they sponsored and what level
they did, so I don't know that exactly yet, but they were a sponsor last year.
With the three Eagle sponsors, they do get, each get a two-sum to play in the tournament.
I've been told that Mason Financial Group will have four.
golfers in total, so they're going to do use two and then have another two sign up.
And then the other two are just doing two for now.
For that, being known, I did reach out to as well to some of my contacts in the sport world
in trying to get players. I ended up not getting as many players through.
that, but I did get a lot of donations from UNH. Athletic Department is giving us tickets to
raffle off. It's a complimentary ticket. Tickets for four people to go to, I'm not sure how many
they're giving us, but I did ask for a men's and a woman's game. So it could be two or three
each, or just one each to have two. Hockey game, I assume. For hockey game at UNH. As well as
Hockey East, the UNH's conference has given us a nice bag of a donation, which includes two
Hockey East final pins, two tickets to the semifinals or the finals at the TD Garden for
Hockey East, as well as two shirts, two t-shirts, which is one is a U&H women's hockey
East Association shirt with their playoff logo on it and the Hockey East TD Garden T-shirt
from last year from 2026 with a hat and a hockey puck as well and then we gave us a winter
hat just as hockey east on it. So we got some good stuff as donations through sports this year,
which is a step from what we had at this point last year too with donation size.
The only thing that is, what we are looking at is meeting the minimums for both our
catering and Sagamore. We meet Sagamore's minimum for a mini outing, which is we were in that
range last year, towards this time anyways. But we are also close enough to the catering minimum,
which is 25, which is the main number that we need to at least get at if we want to do
catering. But they can work with us depending on if we're close enough to that number.
Sounds like we're going to get there. He said we're at 17. We're expecting more.
Yes. I know. We're at 9, I thought. Oh, you said we're at 17. We're at 17 now. It updated from when
I did this because a couple people have registered and I know someone, a part of this committee,
is rating on signing up eight people.
Not yet. Supposedly.
Maybe 12.
Maybe 12.
Maybe 12? Now, who will cater? Is that in place? Are you waiting to get this?
So catering has been ordered. It is, I have, that's why there's a deadline of September 14th for catering, because I have to let them know the final numbers.
The catering, I always forget the name of it. It's a local Portsmouth catering company that does it.
Sagamo has been working with them for years.
I know my contact there is Borrell.
Burrell, I always want to butcher it.
She's been wonderful.
She's worked with us with trying to figure out which one would be the best one.
We are going to have a barbecue style catered.
Is that at the golf course this year instead of going to throwback,
that way we can kind of be in one central location and not losing people in
transportation. While we are doing the
catering and whatnot, because it's not going to be a shotgun start,
it's going to be T-times again, because we're not going to hit the 125 that we need for a shotgun.
We are going to have a putting contest near
the 10th at Sagamore by a whole 10, I want to say that is.
Or just to see who can do it.
Yep.
As well.
And whatnot.
We do have, the bags are all set.
We are going to do the baggaly again of the goodies that we gave out last year, like
Gondola Bars, water, the brochure for the tournament and the tea times listed in it, as well as
the sponsorship from the back like we did last year.
And then we're also going to give them some teas.
Sounds good.
Did you want someone to help circle back with it?
the two that you haven't heard from?
If I know both of them, so if you...
If you can, that was great.
Just to kind of get a final answer.
I did finally get in contact with MCPI.
I would just hesitate to throw out a lot of the names and stuff in the meeting.
Yes, say we're working on...
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. But I have handed MPC paperwork at the front desk.
Oh, okay.
So if you want to just follow up at a side.
some point. Sure. So with the final day of the
catering, we have a number of people that sign up the day of, so
you will, I'm assuming, add on how many?
We would look at it based on what we think it's going to be, so
that's usually some extras to cover that.
Okay. But we're trying to say a deadline is
the 14th week out for all that stuff to give them
what we think the numbers will be. And what do you need from us?
for that day.
Golfers.
Just golfers.
Pretty much.
And help.
And the day of.
And the day of help.
Yeah.
Is Kathy helping with like the fruit cups again?
I have reached out to Kathy.
I know she can't be here for this meeting.
Yeah.
So I have texted her.
I'm just waiting on a response back.
Okay.
And I can send out an email to the commission once I hear back from that.
But I do, we would need help setting up in the beginning and in taking registration just to
make sure everything is all set. And then the two holes that we would need help at to just
see what's going on would be hole 14 and hole 16.
Whole 14 is the closest to the pin as well as closest to the line is the hole 16.
So if we could have help in those two places, that would be the two that would be the two that we would need help.
I think it'll be good if we, after this meeting kind of like finalized, like, exactly, like, in a checklist.
And then we can have a sign up, like, right next to it of it's this exact thing.
Like, who's making the fruit cups?
Who's picking it up?
Like, I know last year, Kathy made them, and I went in the morning and picked him up and brought them.
So I think that would be helpful to just kind of have, like.
And I can send that.
And I can send that again as an Excel sheet or Google Doc to you guys as a sign-up stuff, too.
Yeah, like something that's in real time would be helpful.
so version control and stuff.
It would also be nice to have more people and just Jane and I there for the whole day in Cammon and Joe.
It's a long day.
And typically, when I've been at a hole, I can't leave to go to the restroom.
So it would be nice to have some people there to help and just to be there to give like a bathroom or, you know, hey, do you need a water.
Do you need anything?
It would be nice.
Yeah, I just need to look at my schedule.
Yeah, I have some work on.
Monday is unfortunately.
I do.
I'm trying to get the day off.
Yeah.
I do too.
Yeah, and that's what we need to find out.
You mean, if people can't be that they can't.
Yeah.
Who can be?
What time does it go until usually?
Middle of the afternoon early,
early afternoon.
Like,
it should,
and the last golfer should come in.
I think we had it.
We didn't know how many of we have, too, but they all have tea times.
Last year.
I think it should.
came in at one was the last one, and then we did dinner.
Like the first half of the day.
Yeah.
And then we did lunch at two over at throwback last year.
This year will be different with the lunch.
Yeah.
Okay.
So I think whatever spreadsheet format we have, maybe we have what exactly, like, needs to be done.
And then another maybe tab, we can have who's availability,
so we can have it all in one spot, don't have to have emails back and forth going.
I think that would be helpful.
And then people can see what gaps there are.
So they can move things around if they can.
Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I just found out that I need to pick my wife up.
Okay.
Because otherwise she's going to be standing at the train station by herself.
All right.
You cannot have that.
I cannot.
I thought my daughter was going to be able to do it, and she can't.
I regret that I have to run away.
Okay.
You are dismissed.
It wasn't.
my intention.
All right.
It's a very romantic dismissal.
I'm going to pick my wife up at the train station.
Yeah.
I see that.
It's movie somewhere.
All right.
Is there any other items on the golf tournament?
I got a question, actually.
Is it helpful if someone's able to show up just for an hour or two in the morning?
Absolutely.
That goes to what it.
I think I did that last year.
I was able to do like two or three hours
a two hours in to fill gaps.
Absolutely.
Or even if someone could stop in at 11 to 12
and maybe give you a break or something.
Yeah.
That's, that'd be great.
All right.
We will move on to commission bylaws.
Okay, so we've been kicking this around a little bit
for the last few months, updating the bylaws.
And in, with
the train station update and also
other members missing, perhaps
we just want to discuss it a little bit
more tonight, but not necessarily
vote yet until we
do have full strength.
But Cam took the time
to re-type, put together
a document that's a little bit cleaner
and easier to read from the original.
But I'll just go through
what we agreed upon
in past meetings and what we
might have for a couple of items.
of discussion and then if it's
your pleasure, again, I would
recommend that we hold off on
on votes just
that we have everybody here
or attempt to
have everybody here.
So if you go to the
first page article
four, we already said
on number one, the
membership of this commission should be
composed of seven registered voters,
one of which we already
voted to change the language to
May. The reason I'm reviewing this
is because that that's not on your sheet
and also all of these
changes will be brought once
voted upon to the Board of
Selectmen as recommendations from this board.
In C,
we have, in the event of
resignation, death, and ability to serve,
removed from the voter checklist, or three
consecutive meeting absences.
The chairperson, we
wanted to change that to May, or
at least discuss that, to change that
to May there as well.
Number
E on this,
the commission may
name no more than two
Northampton residents who are students
that Winnequin High School to be associate members
of the commission until replaced.
I would at least introduce the discussion
just changing that to two
high school students
so that those who are
Northampton residents and their families
if they didn't attend when a con could still
be eligible. Yeah.
But again, that's for a discussion
and
vote. Then on
the article, I think you're mostly
going to flip the page here, but
Article 6, we
had A, we
agreed to recommend a change the time
to 6 o'clock, because that's what we actually do.
And then on
C, and I think
Cameron mentioned, too, that PM
we could put in there, because it said
630 up above, didn't say
PM. On C,
meetings shall convene at 6 o'clock
p.m as well. We could also. We could also
vote to scratch C. It's a bit redundant
in with A there.
And
I think
I think that
was it for either items we previously
have discussed or items
that I've looked at and thought about
and then
would, you know, open it
Mr. Brown to anyone who
has other things that they'd want to
to address, talk about,
recommend for changes, etc.
Does anyone else have any
I just have a question. What is this other paper?
That's the next
item on our
agenda. Friends of
agenda. Oh,
oh. Oh, sorry.
It's not far of the bylaws. Got it, got it.
I saw bylaws, so I got
confused. That's a different bylaws.
Yeah. Got it.
I think that looks great.
Yeah.
I think there's
perfect.
It seemed like no-brainers.
Mm-hmm.
Is that, that's all of
our recommendations
for the bylaw changes.
So we will move on to
the Friends of.
Yes. So we talked about this.
I think the last time we discussed
it was in November, so we wanted
to discuss it again.
We want to
move forward with
creating the Friends of Northampton Parks
and Recreation. In order to
do this, we need to have
five people
as the directors of that.
that. Employees of the town
can be part of that.
So we think we'll have
one or two as it is.
We need to get that
up to five, and then from there
we have several things that we
would be responsible
to do to sort of get things started.
You have some paperwork on
that. We didn't want to go
too far down that
that hole tonight other than to say that
we are looking for people who are
interested both in this room
and in the community to be a part of this.
Everyone who winds up donating time,
monetary donation services,
and that would be considered members of it,
but the board of directors will be five people.
Obviously, there's a lot of friends of
organizations already in town.
The purpose of it and benefit of it to the department
is to help in our fundraising opportunities
by becoming the 503C.
503C, which could give all of our donors that status.
It could also open us up to other fundraising opportunities,
whether it's casino rooms or any of that type of stuff.
So we think it's a valuable part to try to find ways to create more revenue
while having a lot of our events and scholarship programs and things like that
be as free to the public as we possibly can.
Just a quick item.
And we were, we gave out from our department for people who qualified for our
RU-N card scholarship fund, that's basically a 50-50 match.
Our UN pre-vets them to make sure they qualify.
And then we offer programs like our summer camp at half price.
So we were out of, from our money, we gave $2,400 in scholarships just for summer camp
alone this year.
And, you know, obviously we're a small town, a small department.
So any ways that we can increase revenues, we subsidize our senior programs.
And again, our community events, we want to be able to do as much as that,
as free events as possible.
So that's sort of our goal behind wanting to get this going, and it's very successful,
obviously, a lot of organizations in town.
And that's kind of where we are is that starting point to get a board of directors
of five people who are interested in running.
with this. Do we have anyone? Do we have anyone yet?
Have we? Well, as I say, we're reintroducing it tonight.
Okay. I certainly myself will be on that. And also that's sort of an important part because if you're,
if you are a town employee or some of that myself, if I'm not on it, I'm not supposed to
really have, you know, obviously voting, but influence and all of that, but if you are actually a
part of it, that's different. So, yeah, so I think we, I think we do have some more interests.
I hope we do. Again, I hope people in this room, but also members of the community would be
interested in being part of that. Is that something that we would vote on here? If, say we got
20 applicants, is that something we would vote on? Or we're just looking for our first five.
No, because it would actually be separate from anything of this and of the town entity. So basically
they'd be putting a meeting together and having a meeting and then hashing that out
that way. Sure. So that would be great. If 20 people in the room said, we want to do this,
and they decide who the five board of directors are, and then you have 15 more people who still
want to do whatever they can. That'd be great. Would we have any connection with them? Like,
would there be a line item ever? Could they come and, like, share an update? Is there anything
like that? Yeah, they can do all of that. Yep. And, of course, they're going, they may even come and say,
you know, what is it you could use help with funding right now for, or what is it you want to do
all that kind of stuff?
Cam, anything else briefly that we?
No, and I know I brought to the commission back in November kind of kind of activating what
we said tonight. We did more further research throughout the last couple of months to figure
it out. That's why we're bringing it back to you guys. I know there's, I know those that are on
the board that was here last year that I brought it in. I did say something.
differently. This is correct. We meet or and or Joe can both be on this as signatures.
Like, so that's, you have two there. That's the, and then the other thing, other people
that you guys have is just something to look at. This nonprofit. Yeah, that's all of the draft.
It's a draft form. You guys can take a look at it. You guys can, if you guys can, if you guys
have edits you guys want to make you can email me privately or if you want to just do something
but that's for like when we do that other meeting that's not a part of this that kind of meeting
would be when you would edit and change and do that stuff as up to that. The friends up bylaws.
This is just a random draft that I put together. Thank you. Thank you for starting. Yeah. So think about it
And talk to others, and again, it's nice to be on TV and put that word out there to everybody as well,
those who are interested. So question on that, is that something that is a term you would be on or are you just be on?
I can speak to that if you want. Yep. So in the drafts, there are terms. I forget what article it falls under.
I want to say it's seven. Article seven. Thank you. It's like six or seven.
So articles.
seven or six, one of the articles say that it's the president serves, or the president serves a three-year term.
Oh, that's article six.
Okay.
So the president will serve a three-year term, and it can be consecutive with a one-year break at the end.
For reelection, it says.
So you can do three years. So you can do three years. Yeah.
So you can do three years.
three hours twice, but you need to have like a year off.
So you come back in as president.
As president. So you can be president twice, but you can, you need to have that break.
That way you're not just keep going with it.
Yeah. And the, okay. So I see. And then it's two years for other officers.
It's a two-year term.
Two years.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
I know.
this isn't on the agenda, but I see this general fund expenditure. Is this any?
Yeah. So you have other items as well.
Right. Yeah. Other other items. Yeah. Any other items? Yeah. So a couple of things on the other items.
I sent out to everyone our results from our summer camp survey, and it was great to see such wonderful responses and feedback to that.
really happy about that and use that information as best we can to continue to try to improve
things. We also sent out a list of a lot of program updates on sort of a Canva thing that you can forward
along. The other thing I would say is we're really expanding even more our social media stuff
and what we're doing with that. We have a lot of programs coming up. So on both Instagram and
Facebook, feel free to like us, share us, tag us, send us, whatever.
as you can do to us, to help get the word out there, because it is helpful to have that stuff out there.
And so we're staying really active with it.
So as part of your, the bylaws when we went through that, one of the bylaws states, at least one regular
meeting per year shall be for the purpose of review and recommendation of the annual budget for the
upcoming fiscal year is presented by the director.
This meeting shall be held prior to the budget review submission.
to the town administrator of the Budget Commission's review of the recreation budget.
So it's a little outdated in terms of our budget information because our budget, I passed around
to everybody, has really become essentially my salary. And part of my salary is also paid
by our revolving account. And our revolving account pays for everything else. So all of
CAM salary and benefits package, whatever that comes with that, all of our other
employees, all of our equipment, all of that.
So when you look at our budget, it's really, you can see, there's not a lot of line items to
it, but between that and the bylaws and us just having a chance to kind of talk about is
important.
So this budget, basically what I've done, because this is the time that we're submitting this to
our finance director and to a
our town administrator eventually the budget committee and the select board.
This, the budget for this upcoming fiscal year, what I've recommended is that our, if you look
at the town of Northampton Parks and Recreation Journal fund expenditures, that that remains
the same. And then there's a line item under the general fund expenditures, which is Dearborn
Park Maintenance, and I've recommended that we increase that to 15,000. And as you can see,
that's that overspent a little bit because we now have full irrigation so our water
or fertilization project, our electricity, all of that type of stuff.
And our playground chips, we really need to build a better maintenance program of that.
We're re-bordering it so that don't have runoff as much.
But so that's where those increases are coming.
But I always love to have a chance to explain our budget to anybody in the
town because I think it's important to note that our budget is essentially most of,
not all my salary, because part of that comes out of our programs as well, and that's about
it.
So I just think it's good for people to know, but also, as keeping with the bylaws, consider this,
your presentation for discussion.
Joe, do they spray Dearborn at all for the mosquitoes?
Not as a regular thing, no.
So they have, we have done that, we've done some other stuff for, I don't know, smaller scale,
employees and everything type of stuff, and things like that.
Okay.
Does it make sense to have each of our programs as a line item?
So we have an understanding of how profitable, how much, like whether it makes sense to continue doing it?
You know, we have the feedback part, but then also if it's something that, you know, it's very costly
and there's minimal attendance, then that can become part of the discussion?
It isn't for me because I have all that information.
So what we basically do is within, so the revolving account, again,
has sort of what you are looking, talking about, not quite to that specificity,
but youth programs, adult programs, special events, final programs, all of that type of stuff.
And then when they're looking,
Then that, we have a ledger that we mark everything.
Then we also have our rec desk, which handles 95%, maybe greater, or registrations.
So we have all the reports and all the data for those programs that you're talking about,
and we can kind of evaluate those as we go along.
There's not a lot of programs that run in the red, with the exception of some senior programs,
and it's fairly minimal.
We subsidize those to some extent.
things like that. But otherwise, the programs sort of either run or they don't, and if they run,
they run it a slight profit or a larger profit.
But we have all that information, so if ever anything specifically, we can get that for you.
Sounds good.
Another item.
Okay. You have another item?
I do.
Harvest Fest.
So Powell is putting together a harvest fest at the school on September 26th.
And I think we had talked about this, Joe, and I just wanted to bring it here to see if there was any interest in the rec mission or the rec department having any participation with that.
It's not focused on Halloween.
It is more of a fall activity, and similar to old home day, bringing it back to basics.
So they do a lot of just fun little games that are not bells and whistles.
It's like, I think one of them is throwing a point.
pumpkin maybe or shooting a pumpkin with like a, maybe it's not shooting.
Pumpkin, um, I don't think that the school would be appreciated on the grass,
but, you know, you can always bring.
Is that you want to do?
When you, when you, when you launch the pumpkin.
Oh, that's your own.
shade.
Like painting pumpkins, face painting.
We had some, um, some farm animals that came haybill, haybill, haybill rides out of the
tractor. Um, so I guess the question I had is if there was a question I had is if there was,
any interest to collaborate or if you just wanted to know what would be included there
so that in October, are we going to be doing a trunk or treat?
Are we, is it time to talk about that already or?
It's already out.
It's the last something in October.
It's out.
And yeah, I did chat, like, it was funny because I know you and I had talked about whatever.
Do we collaborate something?
Do we not step on each other?
However it is.
And I just today saw that post.
So it's, I put it on my one.
board. Okay. And when we get invited, we
show up. So whatever
it is, you want us to do
as a department, certainly.
Yeah. Any ideas of what
the committee hasn't met yet, so it's only a few weeks
away, so they'll be meeting soon. Any ideas
of what you might be interested in? I would
put it this way if you
Is there a need? Right. As you look
at something and say it would be really helpful if you
did an activity or whatever.
it might be, and yeah, we'll do
whatever, so. Okay. Yeah.
And then if you're stumped, I
can come at you, but I just figure
I know we need hay bales. So if you know anyone
who has hay bales, they would like to do
a... Hay bales, do you said? Yes, we're
looking for them. How many hay bales are you looking for?
As many as you would like to give.
I think there's just ideas.
Can I ask
when this is?
September 26.
Two to five or three to five.
It's in the afternoon. So we
Saturday, I think. It's a Saturday.
Yep.
Maybe that's it.
Any other items? Okay.
Is there a motion to conclude
tonight's meeting?
Yes.
I thought nobody wanted to leave there.
Is there a second?
I'll second.
Let's
conclude. All in favor?
Hi.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, everyone.
Thank you.
Thank you.