February 18, 2026 – Cultural Council – Video & Transcript
February 18, 2026 - Cultural Council
it's seven oh five and we need to call the meeting to order do i have somebody propose
the meeting i i make a motion that we call the meeting to order thanks kevin do i have a second
i'll second so the meeting has been called to order seven or six pm and take a roll call um
murray eisenberg present nourish my sore present kevin goodwin present miriam libdi present
charles bent present ahead presence the people we are missing is indian gandhi um donna mitra and um
alissa ao okay so uh the first order of the agenda is i hope all of you have read the january 21st
meeting minutes um do i have a proposal to approve the minutes i'm i move approval thanks kevin
do you have a second a second though thanks mariam charles do you agree yes i agree kevin do you agree
great do you agree yes mariam do agree yes marie do you agree yes nourish do you agree yes
and i agree as well so that unanimously is approved and i'll send it out to be posted on the website
after this meeting all right um next on the agenda is the financial grant updates um
um so i attended a um natick cultural council um grantee meeting and reimbursement procedures which
is very useful because they went in great detail about what to collect and how to send in the
reimbursement um we may be a little too late to do that but i i thought that we could include that in
our um when we have the reception so we can just have a short presentation of what we need um and
how to submit i think some have already submitted that for reimbursement nourish if i'm not mistaken
but we can just go over what is needed and how to submit so just go over the form and go over the other requirements of receipts or um any invoices they have what do you think of that idea it's a good idea anybody else think it's not a good idea or should we go ahead and do that i like the idea a lot okay i agree i like it all right so nourish since you are the closest and you know what all people need if you can just short presentation for whenever we decide to have the um okay reception so you if you can have that ready um you can present it or i'll present it but you can just put together a list of things that you require okay okay uh so i have in the agenda financial status of an allocated grant funds um because i think the scottish festival be approved but they're not going to claim
so um i think the question last time was whether we can use it or we have to use it in the next cycle in the 2027 cycle so nourish do you have a so it was previously too i didn't inquire this time again see if there's any changes in procedures or changes in policy but previously it would uh they had to put it back into our budget for next year for next year so that's 2027 um
correct yeah i looked online that's what it looked like and i thought you said or somebody because the submission date is passed anyway for this cycle so right right okay all right um the next on the agenda was a discussion about these projects um that we were going to fund with our discretionary fund um the first was the mural project and if you remember the mural project and that is um um that is a proposal to draw a mural on the um valent town pool wall which was vandalized a while ago and um some people have gotten together and they want to make a big mural and kind of deter people from doing anything to that wall also or have a message of unity and peace and so on on that wall i had a chat with francis who um is kind of spearheading this project it's a massive project it it it's a multi-step plan so um it is and there are a lot of people funding it as well um we would be if we if we supported we would be one of the funders and um we could have the wcc logo kind of be part of the mural if we wanted um but they haven't started it off as at all the process of you know either selecting the artist or whatever and um they asked if we want to participate in that process and i said i'd ask the committee if anybody is interested in doing that um and as far as how much funding they need it's up to us um we have a certain amount and we have some projects that we are looking at so we can decide how much we want to fund this particular project um if we divide it equally right like people will get like 350 or something each based on the number of projects we have um that is what i have does anybody have any questions about this i can always um call her back and ask her to clarify or ask her to attend a meeting and clarify i do have a quick question will we get to uh see the design before we have to vote for so um so um no because they haven't engaged an artist as yet so um we can be part of the process of picking the design that's another thing that's the thing that she asked if somebody from the cultural council wants to be part of that so um that is what i'm proposing today is that if we decide to fund it does one of us want to be part of that group in which case you know you get added to that that group and be be part of and they're like looking for um they're still looking for help and figuring out how to do this and i feel that somebody from the cultural council would be a useful liaison because we have done the painting the um electric box utility box painting project before so we kind of have an idea of how this works so um if anybody wants to be a part of that team and that's open when is this we have to give the answer now is this next meeting too too late to answer um i i think that will be fine the um we've already kind of decided that we are going to um support these people is just how much and how deeply involved we want to be so um we can we can decide that moving forward um i also told them that they have an option of waiting and applying if this is going to be a multi-year project and they need greater funds they can wait and apply for a bigger grant for 2027 that's an option that they have so um i can take back everybody's questions concerns and talk talk to francis again and we can decide by next time what our level of involvement in this would be hello can you sorry go ahead miriam can you remind me uh who francis is it's someone who's kind of heading this idea of of um um doing this mural and other other people involved i believe there's somebody from the hrdiic involved in it somebody from the school committee and i believe um jane jane polly okay maybe i got her first name wrong but she was the swim coach at the wavelength pool oh okay um she's involved in it and um there are a couple other people she mentioned who are involved in the project and we could be somebody from from the cultural council could also be on that um project and i did tell her that we um to to look at our um we have our roads and you know our rob what is that called our i'm sorry hunting around for our priorities right like our council priorities i sent her a link to our um guidelines and our priorities and i said as long as the um mural fulfills that we're good so she's aware of that
so um what we can do is go through everything that we have and um maybe next in our march meeting kind of vote on how much we want to um allocate to each of these projects and in the meantime um i will make sure that they are asking for our discretionary funding and are not waiting to apply to funding for um next year nothing is going to stop them from applying for funding for 2027 even if we do give our discretionary fund at which time we can if they do then we can decide how much we want to fund them at that time so that's also there okay so i do i have a motion to go ahead and fund the mural project i make a motion that we for all we we fund the mural project do i have a second for that i'll second thanks marie um charles do you agree that we should fund it yes i'm in favor naresh are you in favor yes i'm in favor mariam are you in favor yes mustafa are you in favor yes marie are you in favor yes kevin are you in favor yes and i'm in favor too so we will go ahead and fund that project and we will decide in our march meeting how much of the funds to allocate from our thousand and thirty five dollars to this all right so the next one is the echoes of liberty exhibition so this was supposed to be part of the 250 years of freedom um where they were in the wayland museum they were going to exhibit some something um around this theme um especially whatever pertain to wayland specifically um i have reached out after that initial thing um they they also missed the deadline of applying for funding for this after after that i've reached out i haven't heard anything back um i again sent them an email today asking if they want to talk to us about it and told us about told them about the discretionary fund we have but i'm yet to hear about it so we can put off voting on it until our march meeting so um everybody in favor of putting it off just raise your hand can you see physically yeah okay if you can't raise a physical hand then i see narration is is in favor marie's in favor charles is in favor um i know um kevin mustafa is in favor mariam i can't see you but you can just say yes or no well i'm sorry can you repeat that i think i lost connection for a second um if you are in favor of putting on about voting for the echoes of liberty exhibition until they get back to me until i'm sure yeah i think you meant putting off putting off yes putting it off until the march putting up okay so kevin agrees to so okay i'm okay with that yes okay so we have a unanimous putting it off until march um so we shall do that um the next is the rail trail project discussion um so the bee had expressed um an interest in participating in the beautification so one of the things was to put up a bench there so just a little bit of digging uh just buying a bench we can spend anywhere between 300 and 500 on that um but we have to ask our public works department to install it so i haven't kind of gone through all of that yet um and again we can put off on voting on that until um i'm able to do that that um if if anybody is sorry go ahead do you want me to um have lobby i make a motion that we put off um putting you know yeah okay you know putting the bench
until you you until you find out what goes on with the works department yeah okay so um if if anybody's available to to talk to the public works department to figure this out i'd be happy to hand it off because i am really very busy until the middle of march um i can do it that's something i can do thanks thanks so the bench itself will cost us depending on the material and the size and all somewhere between 300 and 500 dollars okay and just ask the public department what it'll take us to install it somewhere along the rail trail okay i think do you think they might give us specs on how large or whatever they needed to be let me just check okay yeah i'll do it yeah okay let me ask you this is that along the kitchen to it real trail correct okay yep okay all right so um uh sorry let me ask again i don't remember what we said about locations on that so there is a um near the depot they're going to put up a um a sign a history of valent signage okay so we we would ideally like it to be there so people can sit and read and okay so do we i think we probably i'll ask do we need to wait until that sign is up before we try to designate the specific spot or we can we can coordinate with the historic society and see where they're going to put up the signage and if you're ready to put up the bench put up the bench first which is also fine okay do you want me to call the historical society as well or are you in touch with them no um if you can touch base with the historical society and um do that that would be great all right is there a contact that i should talk to yes um give me a second i have to type this in somewhere so richard conrad you can talk to richard conrad okay i'll do it or there's connie somebody else to i forget her last name richard conrad is a good contact okay all right so um the the plan is to wait until murray get some information and vote on this in march as well um charles do you agree
yes i agree yes i agree thank you kevin do you agree agree naresh do you agree yes i agree mariam do you agree yes mustafa do you agree yes murray do you agree yes and i agree as well so we're going to wait until murray gets more information for the march meeting to vote on this and these are the um planned projects that we had on on the docket we have one more um that was not anticipated which is the bayland high school muslim students association that mustafa sent around he sent a document a couple days ago for us to read and um look at it so um if if you've all read it read through it and would like to discuss it the floor is open um if not i would ask mustafa to in either case i would ask mustafa to say a few words about it and we can take it from there so mustafa do you want to introduce well um like is there anything that's like in specific you would like to know or after having read it or should i just um first of all how many of us have read it i have read it um anybody else does murray has read it i have read it kevin i don't think you haven't read it okay i don't think have you read it yeah yep i've read it and mariam have you read it yes okay um mustafa can you just give a quick gist for kevin's understanding of what it is yeah so basically this would be a community oriented event held at the hall next to the town center and any everyone's invited and it's a community uh dinner after sunset and it would be it would be held by the wayland by the wayland high school muslim student association and um we also want to incorporate um another group which is students for solace it is another student-led group um which is a non-profit and we would like uh we would like them to collect donations while the community event is happening um so it'd be an all it would be an inclusive event and it's to really it's to fall it's to foster it's to foster understanding between different groups in wayland because you know with everything that's been going on recently uh all the racism happening in town we want we want to create a safe place and this would be one way to bridge the gap between all the communities um yeah that's pretty much that's pretty much what it is so um thanks mustafa so um i want to say that typically any anything that um a certain community organizes like you know the indian community organizes diwali the chinese community organizes their um chinese new year we do fund it and and they usually apply for a grant to be funded so this is again coming outside the grant cycle so um and it is so the guideline is that it should be available to general public for fostering community and cultural i'm reading out from the guidelines so um it should be available to the general public for and foster community and cultural vitality which it is um it's also it's also free that doesn't matter to us but um we cannot fund inherently religious activities which it is not um so basically they say that religious groups can um apply for these benefits if if it is available to the general public which it is as far as i can understand and which the fight you can correct me if i'm wrong um and we sorry did you have somebody have a question i do um i i was looking it up and it it does seem to have a religious uh it is considered a religious um uh event and i'm just wondering based on it it seemed to be focused on a very specific thing and it would have to be done in such a way as to i don't know i see i wanted some words for this i don't have them really it just seemed to be focused on the religion itself and it is a very specific um like meal that comes at the end of a ramadan fast and and and he was saying how to explain things and it uh it just seems to me to be very close if it doesn't cross the line as like a specifically religious event or you know like close to specific religious event that that's how it looked and i was trying to get more information on that um well i would i wouldn't go as far to say that it is a religious like it is it it just happens to coincide it's it's it's like it's an opportunity for the community to gather and learn more about each other um and the meal it you can't say it's religious but it's only it's it's just how it happens to be when they we can break our fast it's not something that's just inherently religious it's like other people having dinner it's nothing it's something religious it it just coincides with it is all and it's just an opportunity for people to come together of all all religions and races whatever and the goal is just to share what what are we sharing we're we're sharing the time together we're all we're all trying to get to know more about each other on a personal level yes and any it can be anything it's it's a community event for everyone so um sorry yeah very quickly can i just ask are we precluded from funding something that is considered a fully really like a religious event so yes so we say inherently religious activities like worship or proselytization so those are not so those are the only two things that that are specifically mentioned right okay so um i can tell you that um and if that is a cultural event um and um it has been funded by other local cultural councils as far as i i could say burlington council has um a community iftar hopkinson has also funded an interfaith community iftar medford has an interfaith faith community iftar um boston boston slash cambridge has a much larger scale ramadan program um very specifically during the ramadan month um and what i would say is that read out your proposal mustafa for for uh for us to like have it on file shift from religious to cultural focus and social bonding so the language just make sure that it is more it has more of a cultural focus and a social bonding focus that you were mentioning just now yeah and also youth leadership right like it is you both of both these groups are youth groups so kind of put that in there in the language so so we understand that and also i mean you have the public accessibility thing but just mentioned that it is going to be in the municipal building in the coa building and that um it fulfills the public benefit requirement that cultural councils should follow right um i also should state that we have in the past funded um diwali celebrations which which are a hindu uh although it's not religious it's a culture yeah i know yeah and a diwali meal is also uh you know at the yeah it has both cultural and religious significance but almost everything does when it comes down to it but you just have to go to the cultural just like chinese new year exactly it's very yeah it has a very so i would say that change the language to to match what is what what is yeah can i can i sorry can i just uh quickly interrupt you can i ask you what is there like a specific part you're not seeing the language in because i thought that it was very clear that it was youth leadership opportunities um supports the cultural council's mission of enriching community life in town i also mentioned it was in the in the um in the in the coa hall um is there like a very is there like a specific part do you think i should change or what because i thought i thought it was very clear okay hold on let me look okay see so one of the things is that we are restricted to use it for catering and um learn about ramadan specifically yeah well then it was more specific uh yeah that that's that's basically where it was that um food catering and um supplies so that that's something um so they should if if so because the cultural council will co-host and the other council that you mentioned will co-host make that very specific um that it will be used it is a cultural program um and again like this she said that um called to break the fast is a religious context so because you know as far as i know um adhan is part of breaking the fast which is a prayer right so i would stay away from that language um well if i may if i may say um there's a lot of things also that we fund that you know include christmas songs and things like that so i'm a little yeah uneasy about the way we are talking about this i um i feel yeah because um i feel like the restriction is when public money is used to uh uh right whatever that term that you mentioned earlier is process like to try to convert people i guess whatever word is a cinnamon cinnamon synonym for that but cultural practices religious practices intersect a lot and it's very tricky to speak about them in that way um i think the the goal of it is to bring people together to share in a practice that a group of people engage in um in town and bring other people in to share in that experience while creating this community environment for people to converse and stuff like that even the program that i saw listed on there included like something from the cultural council something from someone in town who can speak to inclusivity and yeah similar to the other initiative that the hrdi is doing and things like that yeah i i personally did not see any problems with the way it was written um i would just you know the thing is with the christmas that's another one closer to diwali where it's a general thing christians and non-christians participate and you're not going to have when i think when we fund the historical religious idea there as in a meeting that you would in something that was more specific to the practice we did have something where people got together at a church and sang religious songs we did fund that um in the past so um and also marie not everyone celebrates christmas just because it's made you know just because everyone wants to take christmas off doesn't mean everyone is right but we still do that um i do understand not wanting to find things that necessary serve i guess a certain entity but anything that would expose people to each other is something positive at the end of the day from my aspect i think it's wonderful but to tell the truth that christmas funding in the church i don't know what that was but i would have hesitated about that too i would you know uh i don't know what that was it might have been you know a more uh the church of the church was a meeting place and it you know as a as a town meeting at the church that's one thing but i i would hesitate about that too so just from a finance perspective mustafa uh you're probably not going to get the thousand right because we have uh we have that's like our budget so uh could you explain uh what your budget is you know what you hope to spend and if you get i don't know 333 bucks from the village culture council well where would you go to uh get the rest yeah if you uh you don't have to write it down uh but do you have uh some ideas on um where to get that or will this not happen if uh if you don't get the full budget well we had we were also planning on asking other community partners and then as for the thousand it's just it was just you know high hopes any money is appreciated and it would be used to go towards the food and this event and for as for the event happening or not if we do not get enough money um i think it's we it's not it's not a very high priced event um and the i'll i'm gonna try my hardest to make the community event happen so if i need a uh chip in on the funding as well i can help with that but but any we have the there's there's lots of community partners we can we can ask so it's also okay to say that you will ticket the event because i think the chinese new year they all do it the ticket event so that they can recover some nominal food costs right can you explain what you mean by ticket the event oh just everybody has like a um some price that they pay to yeah like a ten dollar fee or something something very nominal thing that that you pay to participate right like which could be subsidized for school students or whatever but um and and we have seen that happen too and and you know could they do a raffle for that they we could do a yeah you could do a raffle right um and you can ask people like russell's or somebody to give you like a flower uh
all of these russell's donnelins any of these people they can give you a potted plant that you could raffle off yeah yeah yeah i was i was planning to make it free for everyone but that does sound like a good idea yeah yeah something something that will kind of so basically have a plan as to how you will cover costs if you don't get enough donations okay okay all in all i think it's uh it'd be very it'd be very um impactful for the culture council to support this as much as possible i um i agree yeah completely agree um i think in in the um in the light of us supporting the mural project um it makes complete sense to kind of put ourselves behind all efforts to against you know to stand against it um i'm fine with with the language as it is um it is not an official application so i'm completely okay with with this um and and i would suggest that if this is going to be an every year occurrence think about applying for the grant for the 27 cycle um that would be the best way that you will get more money that that's basically it all right so um all in um i will ask if if you are in favor we will put this to vote i need somebody to propose that we put it to vote but pilavi before that can i just ask one question um and sorry mustafa if i miss this but i'm just curious on your estimated number of attendees like i saw there was language that said something about like per the capacity or up to maximum capacity for the location but i'm just curious like order of magnitude are you thinking like 110 100 a thousand like how many people might might might join um well i think it depends well like you said earlier on the hall capacity and then also just the overall funding we get so if we get if we get funding that is not able to support the hall capacity then we would limit it to to below whatever the hall capacity is so it's still like a very volatile target yeah yeah okay cool um well sorry with that then i i pilavi would be happy is it a motion to vote all right so do i have a second it's a motion to vote whether we support that and thanks kevin all right um nourish are you in support uh yes okay maria are you in support yes mariam are you in support yes kevin are you in support yes are you in support yes and most of i'm not asking you because you're the one who proposed it um i'm in support as well so it unanimously passes and we will um vote on how much when we vote on the others in the march meeting all right thank you everybody that was a very um very nice very um informative and very cordial discussion and i'm glad it went well congratulations all right so the next thing on um the agenda right on time is the grantee reception planning we were thinking of april and may dates mustafa i don't know whether you were there in the last meeting but we held off because we were concerned about your exams so um if you can kind of give us a couple days that we can work around for the grantee reception it will be on the wednesday except it'll be a little earlier i mean we could we could skip wednesday if wednesday doesn't work we can use any other day um if you can give us a couple of dates because mariam is looking at the um council council on aging space so she she needs a few dates so so like specific dates for when the the event would happen yeah when is the when is your spring break right we don't want to have it then so when is your spring break this is about the grantee reception most of our not uh not the event you were talking about what's the it's a reception for all the grant the current um grantees okay so you don't want it to happen during spring break because wouldn't because then wouldn't i be more more like uh more um more free to attend that's perfectly okay like i mean people usually do go out during spring break so kind of getting there's a lot of traveling happening so so when there is no travel happening but we also prefer that it not be during your exam um i i have i'd have to i'm not 100 sure i have to check when so what we were thinking was um
yeah april works um better for me than may so i would i would try to whenever april works better does does the does the third does the first friday of april work april 3rd um we can april 3rd um is that the easter weekend i think oh yeah it is yeah so i'd rather not have it on major holidays because wait a minute i think easter is in march this year not it's april 5th isn't it yeah easter is it so april 3rd would be good friday so we don't want to have it on good friday um i'm honestly open to what whenever anyone's even if i have an exam i can still go all right why don't we try for the 10th then april 10th which is a wednesday correct no that's a friday it's a friday okay all right good okay april 10th okay did did you get that application email i did they said they're pretty open so hopefully yeah yeah so mariam do you want to fill out that application and send it to them sure uh i'm sorry i'm not next to my computer but did they ask for anything other than the date no no no they asked for a number of people yes number of people so you we have we have 13 grantees huh we have 13 grantees right so i think um let me check yeah so maybe 30 people no we we didn't end up with the 17 oh i think we did let me check um still 17 us you could say 36 or something like yeah so we have we do have we do have um gosh let me see also last year like they came in sometimes there was more than one person representing a grantees i don't want to account for that so we have 17 grantees so we can say 35 um plus plus us right so maybe 40 would be a better estimate yeah okay what about ours or did they not ask about so they they did they did ask so usually we have it from six to eight okay and then they asked about uh are you serving food and you can say uh only snacks right yeah we usually just serve finger food and do we have to broadcast it is there like i don't know how the whole is set up yeah so we um i send out an email to the grantees that this is happening and ask them to rsvp i also invite all the town um like the select men and the clerk um and other people and um to to attend you know anybody but it doesn't have to be on wacom it does not but usually wacom does come and cover it oh so they're able to set up in the in that hall but that's nothing we have to do yeah no we just reach out and say this is happening so they can um i i usually just end up inviting the wacom people that to attend and they end up covering it anyway so do you want to give me a plan b in case that april 10 for some reason is not available just so i it not delay the process yeah um since april 10 is is a friday so we can say april 9th which is a thursday if everybody's free
okay april 9th okay i should be thanks kevin all right also um since i'm gonna be filling it for uh for the grantee reception uh if we are going to vote to support the msa uh dinner i'm also gonna have to submit it for that okay um so this is you submitting it um um on behalf of the cultural council and that will be on behalf of the msa right so so if the culture council is is sponsoring where we i don't come in it through the culture council are we sponsoring it or just uh funding it we're just funding it so yeah okay okay so there's nothing that doesn't no okay i mean but if you certainly talk with it we can do that right yeah as on an individual basis yeah yeah and we can definitely also invite all the groups that we fund eventually as well okay so i'll see well i'll uh whatever i get back i know we can't discuss over email but whatever i confirmation i get from the from the council on aging about our grantee reception date i'll just send an email with that so everyone knows what the date is yeah um and you as long as you send it to the cultural council email list yes it'd be good yes so we can't do a contingent if uh if the date if she gets the dates that we have uh or is it because there were two dates that we can't do like that we approve it as long as it's one of the dates that she's requesting yeah we could do that maybe if they don't have it then we'll have to wait till march to kind of okay do you want to give me a plan c to cover to cover because they're very cool i i doubt that they have it reserved two days in a row so hopefully nine or ten are are yeah available yeah and it's late enough six to eight yeah um usually council of on aging activities don't go on until that long so do you know they have like a public calendar yes they do so it should be on their website uh maybe that would be helpful give me a second does it only have coa activities on the calendar uh it has yeah i think that's the thing so um i can you know they do have things like they might have uh things nearing the town election but i think there's a very good chance we're going to get these dates i don't think we worry about i don't think i don't think we should worry about that
all right um all right so i think that's all set and once the date gets set um in the march meeting we can discuss about food and and so on okay okay um the only other not anticipated thing was the hrdeic asking us if they can use our bulletin board um we usually we have kind of stopped using our bulletin board and others have been using it so um let me
read out from the email they said they just sent us to us so um for their fifth anniversary they want to use the um bulletin board to display about the history and some of the new things that they're thinking of doing um and they're asking if we can use our bulletin board for that so uh the i want somebody to propose a motion to vote in favor or against hrdeic using the bulletin board i move to vote in favor of allowing hrdeic to use the uh wcc bulletin board can i ask a question before voting are they asking to use the whole thing like or sharing it with us we don't currently have anything up on the bulletin board yeah i it's just a thought but i'm thinking maybe it's i don't know if the grantees would be interested to like submit things um but since we have the event coming up um if we have it so we can say that they can use it until may and then after our um april grantee reception if we decide to have our grantees put up something on the bulletin board then they take it down and we use it so it can be contingent on that and we can say that yes from now on until may you have the space yeah i'm sure we couldn't coordinate if we had to yeah yeah and at which point if we have a lot of things that we want to put up there we can tell them to take the whole thing down or give us a part of the space or something we can negotiate that at that time okay do you have a second for marie's motion i can second thanks mariam um charles do you agree uh yes i'm in favor heaven do you agree agree nourish do you agree yes i agree mariam do you agree you have seen maria miriam i said i well let's do murray because you're on okay i agree mariam do you agree i do too mustafa do you agree yes i agree as well so um i will um respond to the email saying that they have it until end of april at which time we can talk again is there any other thing that people didn't anticipate that they want to discuss we have two minutes all right it has been a very productive meeting and i'm proud of the way we we went through the agenda today um so thank you everybody so i just have a question um am i am i allowed to like continue planning the event yeah is it okay thank you um you have a motion to adjourn
i make a motion that we adjourn at 7 59. thanks kevin do you have a second sure i'll second thanks naresh charles are you in agreement yes thank you mr paul are you in agreement yes mariam are you in agreement yes maria are you in agreement yes nourish are you in agreement yes kevin are you in agreement yes and i agree as well so we close the meeting at 7 59. thank you everybody have a wonderful night you you you you you you you you you
but we can just go over what is needed and how to submit so just go over the form and go over the other requirements of receipts or um any invoices they have what do you think of that idea it's a good idea anybody else think it's not a good idea or should we go ahead and do that i like the idea a lot okay i agree i like it all right so nourish since you are the closest and you know what all people need if you can just short presentation for whenever we decide to have the um okay reception so you if you can have that ready um you can present it or i'll present it but you can just put together a list of things that you require okay okay uh so i have in the agenda financial status of an allocated grant funds um because i think the scottish festival be approved but they're not going to claim
so um i think the question last time was whether we can use it or we have to use it in the next cycle in the 2027 cycle so nourish do you have a so it was previously too i didn't inquire this time again see if there's any changes in procedures or changes in policy but previously it would uh they had to put it back into our budget for next year for next year so that's 2027 um
correct yeah i looked online that's what it looked like and i thought you said or somebody because the submission date is passed anyway for this cycle so right right okay all right um the next on the agenda was a discussion about these projects um that we were going to fund with our discretionary fund um the first was the mural project and if you remember the mural project and that is um um that is a proposal to draw a mural on the um valent town pool wall which was vandalized a while ago and um some people have gotten together and they want to make a big mural and kind of deter people from doing anything to that wall also or have a message of unity and peace and so on on that wall i had a chat with francis who um is kind of spearheading this project it's a massive project it it it's a multi-step plan so um it is and there are a lot of people funding it as well um we would be if we if we supported we would be one of the funders and um we could have the wcc logo kind of be part of the mural if we wanted um but they haven't started it off as at all the process of you know either selecting the artist or whatever and um they asked if we want to participate in that process and i said i'd ask the committee if anybody is interested in doing that um and as far as how much funding they need it's up to us um we have a certain amount and we have some projects that we are looking at so we can decide how much we want to fund this particular project um if we divide it equally right like people will get like 350 or something each based on the number of projects we have um that is what i have does anybody have any questions about this i can always um call her back and ask her to clarify or ask her to attend a meeting and clarify i do have a quick question will we get to uh see the design before we have to vote for so um so um no because they haven't engaged an artist as yet so um we can be part of the process of picking the design that's another thing that's the thing that she asked if somebody from the cultural council wants to be part of that so um that is what i'm proposing today is that if we decide to fund it does one of us want to be part of that group in which case you know you get added to that that group and be be part of and they're like looking for um they're still looking for help and figuring out how to do this and i feel that somebody from the cultural council would be a useful liaison because we have done the painting the um electric box utility box painting project before so we kind of have an idea of how this works so um if anybody wants to be a part of that team and that's open when is this we have to give the answer now is this next meeting too too late to answer um i i think that will be fine the um we've already kind of decided that we are going to um support these people is just how much and how deeply involved we want to be so um we can we can decide that moving forward um i also told them that they have an option of waiting and applying if this is going to be a multi-year project and they need greater funds they can wait and apply for a bigger grant for 2027 that's an option that they have so um i can take back everybody's questions concerns and talk talk to francis again and we can decide by next time what our level of involvement in this would be hello can you sorry go ahead miriam can you remind me uh who francis is it's someone who's kind of heading this idea of of um um doing this mural and other other people involved i believe there's somebody from the hrdiic involved in it somebody from the school committee and i believe um jane jane polly okay maybe i got her first name wrong but she was the swim coach at the wavelength pool oh okay um she's involved in it and um there are a couple other people she mentioned who are involved in the project and we could be somebody from from the cultural council could also be on that um project and i did tell her that we um to to look at our um we have our roads and you know our rob what is that called our i'm sorry hunting around for our priorities right like our council priorities i sent her a link to our um guidelines and our priorities and i said as long as the um mural fulfills that we're good so she's aware of that
so um what we can do is go through everything that we have and um maybe next in our march meeting kind of vote on how much we want to um allocate to each of these projects and in the meantime um i will make sure that they are asking for our discretionary funding and are not waiting to apply to funding for um next year nothing is going to stop them from applying for funding for 2027 even if we do give our discretionary fund at which time we can if they do then we can decide how much we want to fund them at that time so that's also there okay so i do i have a motion to go ahead and fund the mural project i make a motion that we for all we we fund the mural project do i have a second for that i'll second thanks marie um charles do you agree that we should fund it yes i'm in favor naresh are you in favor yes i'm in favor mariam are you in favor yes mustafa are you in favor yes marie are you in favor yes kevin are you in favor yes and i'm in favor too so we will go ahead and fund that project and we will decide in our march meeting how much of the funds to allocate from our thousand and thirty five dollars to this all right so the next one is the echoes of liberty exhibition so this was supposed to be part of the 250 years of freedom um where they were in the wayland museum they were going to exhibit some something um around this theme um especially whatever pertain to wayland specifically um i have reached out after that initial thing um they they also missed the deadline of applying for funding for this after after that i've reached out i haven't heard anything back um i again sent them an email today asking if they want to talk to us about it and told us about told them about the discretionary fund we have but i'm yet to hear about it so we can put off voting on it until our march meeting so um everybody in favor of putting it off just raise your hand can you see physically yeah okay if you can't raise a physical hand then i see narration is is in favor marie's in favor charles is in favor um i know um kevin mustafa is in favor mariam i can't see you but you can just say yes or no well i'm sorry can you repeat that i think i lost connection for a second um if you are in favor of putting on about voting for the echoes of liberty exhibition until they get back to me until i'm sure yeah i think you meant putting off putting off yes putting it off until the march putting up okay so kevin agrees to so okay i'm okay with that yes okay so we have a unanimous putting it off until march um so we shall do that um the next is the rail trail project discussion um so the bee had expressed um an interest in participating in the beautification so one of the things was to put up a bench there so just a little bit of digging uh just buying a bench we can spend anywhere between 300 and 500 on that um but we have to ask our public works department to install it so i haven't kind of gone through all of that yet um and again we can put off on voting on that until um i'm able to do that that um if if anybody is sorry go ahead do you want me to um have lobby i make a motion that we put off um putting you know yeah okay you know putting the bench
until you you until you find out what goes on with the works department yeah okay so um if if anybody's available to to talk to the public works department to figure this out i'd be happy to hand it off because i am really very busy until the middle of march um i can do it that's something i can do thanks thanks so the bench itself will cost us depending on the material and the size and all somewhere between 300 and 500 dollars okay and just ask the public department what it'll take us to install it somewhere along the rail trail okay i think do you think they might give us specs on how large or whatever they needed to be let me just check okay yeah i'll do it yeah okay let me ask you this is that along the kitchen to it real trail correct okay yep okay all right so um uh sorry let me ask again i don't remember what we said about locations on that so there is a um near the depot they're going to put up a um a sign a history of valent signage okay so we we would ideally like it to be there so people can sit and read and okay so do we i think we probably i'll ask do we need to wait until that sign is up before we try to designate the specific spot or we can we can coordinate with the historic society and see where they're going to put up the signage and if you're ready to put up the bench put up the bench first which is also fine okay do you want me to call the historical society as well or are you in touch with them no um if you can touch base with the historical society and um do that that would be great all right is there a contact that i should talk to yes um give me a second i have to type this in somewhere so richard conrad you can talk to richard conrad okay i'll do it or there's connie somebody else to i forget her last name richard conrad is a good contact okay all right so um the the plan is to wait until murray get some information and vote on this in march as well um charles do you agree
yes i agree yes i agree thank you kevin do you agree agree naresh do you agree yes i agree mariam do you agree yes mustafa do you agree yes murray do you agree yes and i agree as well so we're going to wait until murray gets more information for the march meeting to vote on this and these are the um planned projects that we had on on the docket we have one more um that was not anticipated which is the bayland high school muslim students association that mustafa sent around he sent a document a couple days ago for us to read and um look at it so um if if you've all read it read through it and would like to discuss it the floor is open um if not i would ask mustafa to in either case i would ask mustafa to say a few words about it and we can take it from there so mustafa do you want to introduce well um like is there anything that's like in specific you would like to know or after having read it or should i just um first of all how many of us have read it i have read it um anybody else does murray has read it i have read it kevin i don't think you haven't read it okay i don't think have you read it yeah yep i've read it and mariam have you read it yes okay um mustafa can you just give a quick gist for kevin's understanding of what it is yeah so basically this would be a community oriented event held at the hall next to the town center and any everyone's invited and it's a community uh dinner after sunset and it would be it would be held by the wayland by the wayland high school muslim student association and um we also want to incorporate um another group which is students for solace it is another student-led group um which is a non-profit and we would like uh we would like them to collect donations while the community event is happening um so it'd be an all it would be an inclusive event and it's to really it's to fall it's to foster it's to foster understanding between different groups in wayland because you know with everything that's been going on recently uh all the racism happening in town we want we want to create a safe place and this would be one way to bridge the gap between all the communities um yeah that's pretty much that's pretty much what it is so um thanks mustafa so um i want to say that typically any anything that um a certain community organizes like you know the indian community organizes diwali the chinese community organizes their um chinese new year we do fund it and and they usually apply for a grant to be funded so this is again coming outside the grant cycle so um and it is so the guideline is that it should be available to general public for fostering community and cultural i'm reading out from the guidelines so um it should be available to the general public for and foster community and cultural vitality which it is um it's also it's also free that doesn't matter to us but um we cannot fund inherently religious activities which it is not um so basically they say that religious groups can um apply for these benefits if if it is available to the general public which it is as far as i can understand and which the fight you can correct me if i'm wrong um and we sorry did you have somebody have a question i do um i i was looking it up and it it does seem to have a religious uh it is considered a religious um uh event and i'm just wondering based on it it seemed to be focused on a very specific thing and it would have to be done in such a way as to i don't know i see i wanted some words for this i don't have them really it just seemed to be focused on the religion itself and it is a very specific um like meal that comes at the end of a ramadan fast and and and he was saying how to explain things and it uh it just seems to me to be very close if it doesn't cross the line as like a specifically religious event or you know like close to specific religious event that that's how it looked and i was trying to get more information on that um well i would i wouldn't go as far to say that it is a religious like it is it it just happens to coincide it's it's it's like it's an opportunity for the community to gather and learn more about each other um and the meal it you can't say it's religious but it's only it's it's just how it happens to be when they we can break our fast it's not something that's just inherently religious it's like other people having dinner it's nothing it's something religious it it just coincides with it is all and it's just an opportunity for people to come together of all all religions and races whatever and the goal is just to share what what are we sharing we're we're sharing the time together we're all we're all trying to get to know more about each other on a personal level yes and any it can be anything it's it's a community event for everyone so um sorry yeah very quickly can i just ask are we precluded from funding something that is considered a fully really like a religious event so yes so we say inherently religious activities like worship or proselytization so those are not so those are the only two things that that are specifically mentioned right okay so um i can tell you that um and if that is a cultural event um and um it has been funded by other local cultural councils as far as i i could say burlington council has um a community iftar hopkinson has also funded an interfaith community iftar medford has an interfaith faith community iftar um boston boston slash cambridge has a much larger scale ramadan program um very specifically during the ramadan month um and what i would say is that read out your proposal mustafa for for uh for us to like have it on file shift from religious to cultural focus and social bonding so the language just make sure that it is more it has more of a cultural focus and a social bonding focus that you were mentioning just now yeah and also youth leadership right like it is you both of both these groups are youth groups so kind of put that in there in the language so so we understand that and also i mean you have the public accessibility thing but just mentioned that it is going to be in the municipal building in the coa building and that um it fulfills the public benefit requirement that cultural councils should follow right um i also should state that we have in the past funded um diwali celebrations which which are a hindu uh although it's not religious it's a culture yeah i know yeah and a diwali meal is also uh you know at the yeah it has both cultural and religious significance but almost everything does when it comes down to it but you just have to go to the cultural just like chinese new year exactly it's very yeah it has a very so i would say that change the language to to match what is what what is yeah can i can i sorry can i just uh quickly interrupt you can i ask you what is there like a specific part you're not seeing the language in because i thought that it was very clear that it was youth leadership opportunities um supports the cultural council's mission of enriching community life in town i also mentioned it was in the in the um in the in the coa hall um is there like a very is there like a specific part do you think i should change or what because i thought i thought it was very clear okay hold on let me look okay see so one of the things is that we are restricted to use it for catering and um learn about ramadan specifically yeah well then it was more specific uh yeah that that's that's basically where it was that um food catering and um supplies so that that's something um so they should if if so because the cultural council will co-host and the other council that you mentioned will co-host make that very specific um that it will be used it is a cultural program um and again like this she said that um called to break the fast is a religious context so because you know as far as i know um adhan is part of breaking the fast which is a prayer right so i would stay away from that language um well if i may if i may say um there's a lot of things also that we fund that you know include christmas songs and things like that so i'm a little yeah uneasy about the way we are talking about this i um i feel yeah because um i feel like the restriction is when public money is used to uh uh right whatever that term that you mentioned earlier is process like to try to convert people i guess whatever word is a cinnamon cinnamon synonym for that but cultural practices religious practices intersect a lot and it's very tricky to speak about them in that way um i think the the goal of it is to bring people together to share in a practice that a group of people engage in um in town and bring other people in to share in that experience while creating this community environment for people to converse and stuff like that even the program that i saw listed on there included like something from the cultural council something from someone in town who can speak to inclusivity and yeah similar to the other initiative that the hrdi is doing and things like that yeah i i personally did not see any problems with the way it was written um i would just you know the thing is with the christmas that's another one closer to diwali where it's a general thing christians and non-christians participate and you're not going to have when i think when we fund the historical religious idea there as in a meeting that you would in something that was more specific to the practice we did have something where people got together at a church and sang religious songs we did fund that um in the past so um and also marie not everyone celebrates christmas just because it's made you know just because everyone wants to take christmas off doesn't mean everyone is right but we still do that um i do understand not wanting to find things that necessary serve i guess a certain entity but anything that would expose people to each other is something positive at the end of the day from my aspect i think it's wonderful but to tell the truth that christmas funding in the church i don't know what that was but i would have hesitated about that too i would you know uh i don't know what that was it might have been you know a more uh the church of the church was a meeting place and it you know as a as a town meeting at the church that's one thing but i i would hesitate about that too so just from a finance perspective mustafa uh you're probably not going to get the thousand right because we have uh we have that's like our budget so uh could you explain uh what your budget is you know what you hope to spend and if you get i don't know 333 bucks from the village culture council well where would you go to uh get the rest yeah if you uh you don't have to write it down uh but do you have uh some ideas on um where to get that or will this not happen if uh if you don't get the full budget well we had we were also planning on asking other community partners and then as for the thousand it's just it was just you know high hopes any money is appreciated and it would be used to go towards the food and this event and for as for the event happening or not if we do not get enough money um i think it's we it's not it's not a very high priced event um and the i'll i'm gonna try my hardest to make the community event happen so if i need a uh chip in on the funding as well i can help with that but but any we have the there's there's lots of community partners we can we can ask so it's also okay to say that you will ticket the event because i think the chinese new year they all do it the ticket event so that they can recover some nominal food costs right can you explain what you mean by ticket the event oh just everybody has like a um some price that they pay to yeah like a ten dollar fee or something something very nominal thing that that you pay to participate right like which could be subsidized for school students or whatever but um and and we have seen that happen too and and you know could they do a raffle for that they we could do a yeah you could do a raffle right um and you can ask people like russell's or somebody to give you like a flower uh
all of these russell's donnelins any of these people they can give you a potted plant that you could raffle off yeah yeah yeah i was i was planning to make it free for everyone but that does sound like a good idea yeah yeah something something that will kind of so basically have a plan as to how you will cover costs if you don't get enough donations okay okay all in all i think it's uh it'd be very it'd be very um impactful for the culture council to support this as much as possible i um i agree yeah completely agree um i think in in the um in the light of us supporting the mural project um it makes complete sense to kind of put ourselves behind all efforts to against you know to stand against it um i'm fine with with the language as it is um it is not an official application so i'm completely okay with with this um and and i would suggest that if this is going to be an every year occurrence think about applying for the grant for the 27 cycle um that would be the best way that you will get more money that that's basically it all right so um all in um i will ask if if you are in favor we will put this to vote i need somebody to propose that we put it to vote but pilavi before that can i just ask one question um and sorry mustafa if i miss this but i'm just curious on your estimated number of attendees like i saw there was language that said something about like per the capacity or up to maximum capacity for the location but i'm just curious like order of magnitude are you thinking like 110 100 a thousand like how many people might might might join um well i think it depends well like you said earlier on the hall capacity and then also just the overall funding we get so if we get if we get funding that is not able to support the hall capacity then we would limit it to to below whatever the hall capacity is so it's still like a very volatile target yeah yeah okay cool um well sorry with that then i i pilavi would be happy is it a motion to vote all right so do i have a second it's a motion to vote whether we support that and thanks kevin all right um nourish are you in support uh yes okay maria are you in support yes mariam are you in support yes kevin are you in support yes are you in support yes and most of i'm not asking you because you're the one who proposed it um i'm in support as well so it unanimously passes and we will um vote on how much when we vote on the others in the march meeting all right thank you everybody that was a very um very nice very um informative and very cordial discussion and i'm glad it went well congratulations all right so the next thing on um the agenda right on time is the grantee reception planning we were thinking of april and may dates mustafa i don't know whether you were there in the last meeting but we held off because we were concerned about your exams so um if you can kind of give us a couple days that we can work around for the grantee reception it will be on the wednesday except it'll be a little earlier i mean we could we could skip wednesday if wednesday doesn't work we can use any other day um if you can give us a couple of dates because mariam is looking at the um council council on aging space so she she needs a few dates so so like specific dates for when the the event would happen yeah when is the when is your spring break right we don't want to have it then so when is your spring break this is about the grantee reception most of our not uh not the event you were talking about what's the it's a reception for all the grant the current um grantees okay so you don't want it to happen during spring break because wouldn't because then wouldn't i be more more like uh more um more free to attend that's perfectly okay like i mean people usually do go out during spring break so kind of getting there's a lot of traveling happening so so when there is no travel happening but we also prefer that it not be during your exam um i i have i'd have to i'm not 100 sure i have to check when so what we were thinking was um
yeah april works um better for me than may so i would i would try to whenever april works better does does the does the third does the first friday of april work april 3rd um we can april 3rd um is that the easter weekend i think oh yeah it is yeah so i'd rather not have it on major holidays because wait a minute i think easter is in march this year not it's april 5th isn't it yeah easter is it so april 3rd would be good friday so we don't want to have it on good friday um i'm honestly open to what whenever anyone's even if i have an exam i can still go all right why don't we try for the 10th then april 10th which is a wednesday correct no that's a friday it's a friday okay all right good okay april 10th okay did did you get that application email i did they said they're pretty open so hopefully yeah yeah so mariam do you want to fill out that application and send it to them sure uh i'm sorry i'm not next to my computer but did they ask for anything other than the date no no no they asked for a number of people yes number of people so you we have we have 13 grantees huh we have 13 grantees right so i think um let me check yeah so maybe 30 people no we we didn't end up with the 17 oh i think we did let me check um still 17 us you could say 36 or something like yeah so we have we do have we do have um gosh let me see also last year like they came in sometimes there was more than one person representing a grantees i don't want to account for that so we have 17 grantees so we can say 35 um plus plus us right so maybe 40 would be a better estimate yeah okay what about ours or did they not ask about so they they did they did ask so usually we have it from six to eight okay and then they asked about uh are you serving food and you can say uh only snacks right yeah we usually just serve finger food and do we have to broadcast it is there like i don't know how the whole is set up yeah so we um i send out an email to the grantees that this is happening and ask them to rsvp i also invite all the town um like the select men and the clerk um and other people and um to to attend you know anybody but it doesn't have to be on wacom it does not but usually wacom does come and cover it oh so they're able to set up in the in that hall but that's nothing we have to do yeah no we just reach out and say this is happening so they can um i i usually just end up inviting the wacom people that to attend and they end up covering it anyway so do you want to give me a plan b in case that april 10 for some reason is not available just so i it not delay the process yeah um since april 10 is is a friday so we can say april 9th which is a thursday if everybody's free
okay april 9th okay i should be thanks kevin all right also um since i'm gonna be filling it for uh for the grantee reception uh if we are going to vote to support the msa uh dinner i'm also gonna have to submit it for that okay um so this is you submitting it um um on behalf of the cultural council and that will be on behalf of the msa right so so if the culture council is is sponsoring where we i don't come in it through the culture council are we sponsoring it or just uh funding it we're just funding it so yeah okay okay so there's nothing that doesn't no okay i mean but if you certainly talk with it we can do that right yeah as on an individual basis yeah yeah and we can definitely also invite all the groups that we fund eventually as well okay so i'll see well i'll uh whatever i get back i know we can't discuss over email but whatever i confirmation i get from the from the council on aging about our grantee reception date i'll just send an email with that so everyone knows what the date is yeah um and you as long as you send it to the cultural council email list yes it'd be good yes so we can't do a contingent if uh if the date if she gets the dates that we have uh or is it because there were two dates that we can't do like that we approve it as long as it's one of the dates that she's requesting yeah we could do that maybe if they don't have it then we'll have to wait till march to kind of okay do you want to give me a plan c to cover to cover because they're very cool i i doubt that they have it reserved two days in a row so hopefully nine or ten are are yeah available yeah and it's late enough six to eight yeah um usually council of on aging activities don't go on until that long so do you know they have like a public calendar yes they do so it should be on their website uh maybe that would be helpful give me a second does it only have coa activities on the calendar uh it has yeah i think that's the thing so um i can you know they do have things like they might have uh things nearing the town election but i think there's a very good chance we're going to get these dates i don't think we worry about i don't think i don't think we should worry about that
all right um all right so i think that's all set and once the date gets set um in the march meeting we can discuss about food and and so on okay okay um the only other not anticipated thing was the hrdeic asking us if they can use our bulletin board um we usually we have kind of stopped using our bulletin board and others have been using it so um let me
read out from the email they said they just sent us to us so um for their fifth anniversary they want to use the um bulletin board to display about the history and some of the new things that they're thinking of doing um and they're asking if we can use our bulletin board for that so uh the i want somebody to propose a motion to vote in favor or against hrdeic using the bulletin board i move to vote in favor of allowing hrdeic to use the uh wcc bulletin board can i ask a question before voting are they asking to use the whole thing like or sharing it with us we don't currently have anything up on the bulletin board yeah i it's just a thought but i'm thinking maybe it's i don't know if the grantees would be interested to like submit things um but since we have the event coming up um if we have it so we can say that they can use it until may and then after our um april grantee reception if we decide to have our grantees put up something on the bulletin board then they take it down and we use it so it can be contingent on that and we can say that yes from now on until may you have the space yeah i'm sure we couldn't coordinate if we had to yeah yeah and at which point if we have a lot of things that we want to put up there we can tell them to take the whole thing down or give us a part of the space or something we can negotiate that at that time okay do you have a second for marie's motion i can second thanks mariam um charles do you agree uh yes i'm in favor heaven do you agree agree nourish do you agree yes i agree mariam do you agree you have seen maria miriam i said i well let's do murray because you're on okay i agree mariam do you agree i do too mustafa do you agree yes i agree as well so um i will um respond to the email saying that they have it until end of april at which time we can talk again is there any other thing that people didn't anticipate that they want to discuss we have two minutes all right it has been a very productive meeting and i'm proud of the way we we went through the agenda today um so thank you everybody so i just have a question um am i am i allowed to like continue planning the event yeah is it okay thank you um you have a motion to adjourn
i make a motion that we adjourn at 7 59. thanks kevin do you have a second sure i'll second thanks naresh charles are you in agreement yes thank you mr paul are you in agreement yes mariam are you in agreement yes maria are you in agreement yes nourish are you in agreement yes kevin are you in agreement yes and i agree as well so we close the meeting at 7 59. thank you everybody have a wonderful night you you you you you you you you you