December 16, 2025 – HRDEI Committee – Video & Transcript
December 16, 2025 - HRDEI Committee
Good evening, everybody. I'm Karen Blumenfeld, and this is the Human Rights, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee.
We are starting our meeting at 6.04 on Tuesday, December 16th.
So let's start with a roll call.
And I'm going to...this is a hybrid meeting, so we have some people online and some people in the room.
If you all forgive me, I'm just going to go through the list.
It's not in alphabetical order. It's in the list. It's on our website.
I'm going to call your names and just please say if you're here or you're not here.
Well, don't say if you're not here, but say if you're here.
Heather?
Here.
Heather Pino.
Okay. Asma Khan is not here.
Yao Wu-Tang?
Yao Wu-Tang, no. Wait. Oh, here. I'm going to come back to him. Okay. Maya Raj is not here. Mariam Libdi is not here. Sarah Stutten is not here. Denise Fortin is not here. Kevin Goodwin? Here. Janot Mendler-Desuarez? Here. Marianne Borkowski? Here. Sophie Chen? Here. Yao Wu-Tang? Yao Wu-Tang's here. Thank you. And Karen Blumenfeld, that's me. I'm here. We also have some guests here tonight. Well, actually, first, do we have any public comment? We do not. So I want to introduce our guests tonight, who are also with us hybrid tonight. So we have Matt Brown here in person, and Dana Esigman and Bob Ansbach. That's great. Sorry? It's fine. Okay. Yeah, great. So you guys are here to join us and just to be observers of our meeting. The three of you are from the Framingham Human Relations Commission, and you asked to come to observe our meeting, because you're sort of the equivalent of us in Framingham. And so we said, of course, come observe us and see what's similar and what's different. So thank you for being here tonight. And we have another guest who will be speaking later, Karen Crown, who's going to be talking to us about the Museum of Fine Arts under agenda item number seven. So tonight, we normally do a land acknowledgement, but we are living in such challenging times. This is our last meeting of the year. It has been such a very difficult year, difficult weekend, difficult week in Wayland and beyond. Just so much senseless violence in our world. And we wanted to try something a little different tonight and do sort of within this community, do a community reading of a poem. And Marianne will get us started. So I think you sent it out to the committee. And there were, it's actually a prose. It was a letter written by a woman, a Dr. Clarissa Pincola. And so we wanted to read through them. Each paragraph had a number. Is that anybody online willing to read? Jen O. Yeah. Okay, so I handed out. So how about number one?
Yawu, are you willing to read?
I don't have a copy.
That's okay. You don't need to read. So which one do you want to know? Yawu, you read number one. And Sophie, do you have the material? Yes, yes, I have it. So do you want to read number two? Yep, I got it. Okay. Okay, and the, you want to read number three? Kevin? Sure. Yep, Kevin, I'll read four and six and seven. I have five. I have five. Four, five, and six. And I'll do seven. Who has four?
Karen, would you read it? She doesn't have one.
Does Matt have one? No, that would be the last one. You want to do the last one? Yeah, I want to do the last one. Is that all right? Of course. Of course.
So number one, go ahead and start.
We were made for these times by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes. One, my friends do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized visionary people. Two, in any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. We are needed death. That is all we can need. Resistance.
More so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us. Christ is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor, suffering world, will help immensely. It's not given to us to know which acts or by whom will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would like to help to calm the tunnel, this is one of the strongest things you can do. There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I, too, have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. So I just wanted to read about Clarissa Pinkola. She's an American poet, the Jungian psychoanalyst, post-trauma recovery specialist, author, and spoken word artist.
The Estes grew up in a now-vanished oral tradition of her immigrant refugee families who could not read or write or did so haltingly, and from whom English was their third language that overlaid their ancient natal languages. I was so touched by her history. And thank you for reading this. I felt I needed it. Let's just take a second before we segue into the next thing.
Take a deep breath, and let's move into our agenda. So we need to talk about this is item number four, discussion and possible vote to approve our meeting minutes from the last meeting. Thank you to Asma, who's not here, for putting the minutes together. And Yalu, also thank you. And Yalu, you're the note-taker tonight. Is that right? Right. Okay, thank you. Would somebody like to move to approve the meeting minutes? I move. Is there a second? So that was Kevin moving. Is there a second? A second. Janelle second. Okay, Janelle. Is there any comment?
Thank you to our drafters for the notes. Okay, if there's no comments, let's take a vote. I will go in the same order that I did before. Heather? Yes. Yalu? Yes. Kevin? Yes. Janelle? Yes. Marianne? Yes. Sophie? Yes. And me, Karen. Yes. Okay, so the minutes have passed unanimously. Thank you, everybody. Next, we're going to talk about the amazing Human Rights Day event, thanks to Marianne and Asma. And just, you know, anybody want to share any thoughts about it? And then we need to approve some payments. Well, I'll briefly say, so this is the second Human Rights Day, and for the people in our space that don't know what it was, it was a reading of the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that the United Nations passed back in 1948. And we use a simplified version, Amnesty International provides us with one sentence for each one, and we read it in multiple languages, and it's very moving. And then we have a little program, so it's not a big program, it's an hour, hour and 15 minutes, and so we try to follow that up. In this case, we talk about our Freedom Team, the Wayland Freedom Team, and then try to create some sort of visual, some activity. In this case, we thought of action items that we could do in our town, or in our lives, to support the human rights articles that we were reading. So that was the event. I think it was, anybody who was there, want to read? Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. I missed it last year, because I was away, and I was, like, just so excited to see what you and Asma organized. It was beautiful. And then the person running it, Jamil Adams, had everybody take selfies, so he would, he said, you know, stand next to someone you know, or someone you don't know, and take a selfie. And so we have this huge collection of beautiful, smiling people that we're going to post on the website and the Facebook page. It's really, really nice. And Jamil's invitation was to get to know, introduce yourself and get to know people who perhaps you haven't met. And it was almost like a speed dating. Yes. But people had so much, I would say, the room was just kind of elevated, filled with joy, with the thrill of having permission to meet new people. And the conversations, it was hard to reel, you know, reel it back in the evening. Yeah, Janot was our emcee, and Yahoo was very instrumental in getting a number of community members there who could translate into a number of Asian languages. So, and that just adds so much to hear that, so, and, so, we were very excited and unhoped that this will be a, something we do every year, because it's celebratory and such a positive thing.
It's not just the languages, it's what's the words that are being said are very powerful. I agree with that, I think it's the natural feel is an information on every, every, for every different groups, they're endorsed and they're the supporters. But I think the language things make it standing out. And we had broad participation, it was wonderful that there were a few children, people brought their children, and Jamil was very generous in engaging with, with the younger, the younger generation, as well as the older generations. And we also had participation of the town leadership, you know, after hours, after a long day, and a generous financial support from Village Bank. Yes. And their participation. Yes, yes, they sent five people, including the head of their contribution department came in and read. So, that was quite, and they did that last year too, so it was exciting, both years they participated, last year they, this was the first year they gave a donation, and they helped us, you know, pay for some things that, and, not only did they pay, they offered, they did a lot of copying for them, so, there's always a lot of paper to give to them. And there was a good showing from town leadership and school leadership also, which was really nice to see.
Great work. Thank you so much for that. Um, and any other comments, or shall we go ahead and vote on the funding that we need to allocate? It'd be nice to send a, just a brief thank you note on behalf of our committee to, um, our special guest, Jamil Adams, for his beautiful facilitation, and also to Village Bank for their loyalty and supporting our effort in community building. Who, Marianne, will you do that or you want? Yeah, um, I'll do it for, it'll be like from the, us, I'll draft something and, and we can sign it as a committee. That'd be great. So, I mean, I have sent a, uh, you know, email, but that's not the same, something official, thank you, Janot, is, is nice. Yeah. For them to be able to put in their files. Good idea. Um, let's, I guess let's take these two, uh, financial allocations separately. Let's just take two separate votes. The first is to approve a $200 stipend for our special guest, Jamil Adams. Um, would anybody so move? I so move. Thank you, Janot, so moved and Marianne seconded. Uh, are there any comments or can we go ahead and vote? Let's go ahead and vote. Okay. Uh, Heather? Yes. Yawu? Yes. Uh, Kevin? Yes. Janot? Yes. Marianne? Yes. Sophie? Yes. And me, Karen, yes. So unanimous to, um, approve the $200 stipend. And then we have a $200 reimbursement that Marianne and Asma will split, uh, for printing food and supplies that they laid out their personal money for. Um, would somebody move to, to, um, allocate $200 reimbursement to be divided between Marianne and Asma? I see. I move approval that we, uh, $200 reimbursement.
Beautiful. Thank you. Is there a second?
A second. Janot. Janot is seconding. Great. Uh, good. So let us take a vote. Heather? Yes. Yawu? Yes. Kevin? Yes. Janot? Yes. Marianne? Yes. Sophie? Yes. And Karen? Yes. So unanimous for both. Thank you very much, everybody. Um, the next item on our agenda, this would be, Yawu, the third year that we would be co-sponsoring Lunar New Year. Am I right about that?
Yeah, Wu? Oh, look, um, this is the annual, uh, Lunar New Year celebration pulled up, pulled out by the, uh, Weinan Chinese American Associations. Right. They haven't done this for many years. And then they also, their experience is really helped us a lot on that, the fourth two of the, uh, our, um, Multicultural Festivals. So they are looking for our continued co-sponsorship on the 2026, which will be held on, on, uh, February 7th. Right. And this would be the HRDEIC's third year of co-sponsoring, I think, right? Right. Okay, so Lunar New Year celebration with the Weyland Chinese American Association on February 7th, 2026, from 1 to 5 p.m. Any questions, comments?
It's always a great event. There's lots of wonderful activities. It's child-friendly, family-friendly, um, adult-friendly also. And, um, and, an afternoon full of wonderful sponsorship, just to clarify, is to help with publicity the day of. And outreach. Yeah. For a number of years, the Lunar New Year celebration, um, was largely attended, um, participated in, uh, the Asian American community in Weyland. And not entirely due to our help, but, um, I think we have certainly, as a committee, contributed to, um, welcoming the whole community to participate in Lunar New Year. Um, and to have this just wonderful opportunity to understand and share in a little bit of some traditions, um, that are so important to many, um, people in our community. And it's also something, um, I don't know if you remember how, how many years ago, but, uh, it was when Omar Ezi was still superintendent. Um, I think some of our committee members, um, students, um, actually approached the superintendent of schools about making the Lunar New Year a school holiday, um, just a reflection of, you know, how important this is for, um, many people in the Weyland community. Um, so, um, Yahoo, is there anything else that you need from us, um, beyond helping to publicize this program? For the time being, it's, uh, publicize, especially through the entire town. It was, like, with the select board or other, you know, with the comments, the library could, uh, I think library is already our co-sponsor. The more we can get together to support it, the better we'll be. Yeah, we'll all go is to have more and more, uh, people who celebrate the Lunar New Year's to join us, as well as for everyone come to enjoy. Good, and will it say? In January, we could ask to put it in the, um, town manager's newsletter. Right. Yeah. Um, yeah, well, will it say on the flyer, you know, something like all are welcome or something so that when it goes out, you know, people in town will understand it's open to everyone? Oh, yeah, it's open to everyone. It's always open to everyone. No, I'm just saying, like, if there's something on the flyer indicating, you know, open to everyone, then that will help people who see the flyer understand that that means that. Okay, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll make sure that that happens. Yeah. That's a good point. Uh, town manager's newsletter, good. Uh, town manager's newsletter, good. Okay. Um, um, so, Yahoo, I don't know when the flyer will be done because we, as soon as it's done, we can post it on the website. I think, you know, it's, it's not too. I'm sure it will be done by tomorrow. They are waiting for our final vote today. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you. Great. Are we ready to vote or are there any other questions or comments?
Sounds like we're ready to vote. Um, can someone move to, um, vote to co-sponsor the 2026 Lunar New Year celebration with the Whale and Chinese American Association? So moved. Heather?
Is there a second?
A second. Oh, someone else is good. We'll have Yahoo second. That's good. Thank you. Perfect. Okay. Uh, so we're going to vote Heather. Yes. Yahoo? Yes. Kevin? Juno? Yes. Marianne? Yes. Sophie? Yes. And Karen? Yes. So we are unanimously in agreement that we're going to happily co-sponsor Lunar New Year. Thanks everybody. That's great.
Um, next up, we're kind of early. It's a good thing you came early, Karen. Because next up is agenda item number seven, um, which is discussion and possible vote for us to sponsor a tour of the Museum of Fine Arts for Whalen community members focused on how curatorial choices include or exclude particular stories. And our guest tonight is Karen Crown, who is a Whalen resident and a docent at the Museum of Fine Arts, who approached us and said, hey, would you be interested in having a tour for Whalen folks? So please tell us about it. Well, it kind of came out of the, uh, Conversations for Change and that we were talking about this and standing around a group of us and what, somebody said, what can we do? And I, I said, well, what I do is that the museum, uh, kind of came from indivisible, the political groups and, uh, strategic non-cooperation. Well, my strategic non-cooperation is including IDEA, which is also known as DEIA, into my tours and to represent the museum in a little different way. Of course, it always depends upon the group, uh, that I have and you don't, you know, but it is there. It is the mission of the museum. The museum's mission is here all along, uh, so in, in, but it can be done in a different way also. It's not, um, it's not a art history lesson, it's not necessarily a usual tour for a community. We would look at things that, um, that connect, uh, connect, uh, the community and the, well, it's looking at the identity, the things people have made, um, that connect to all of us. So it could be something religious, you know, there could be something in the museum that has a special meaning and we could ask maybe somebody from that particular culture to, you know, tell us their experience of it so that we better understand. Uh, it's looking and saying what can we tell about identity and cultures from the things we have made and what connects us, this bringing worldviews together to connect us, um, in a way that we don't always see. We see something, you know, that represents something but we don't know what it means. And somebody could just say, you know, I mean, it would be better to have that than to me explain it, but, uh, you know, that might be part of it. Uh, and it's, we are, I mean, we are looking at who gets, you know, we are asking the question, who decides, um, who gets to be on museum walls? And we're actively engaged in that. We are even talking to one of the curators and, you know, a little trepidation with what's going on. Um, we can't forget that we are a private museum. So, uh, we don't get any federal money at all. So, at least, you know, for, at least for now, we are okay. It hasn't always been that way, even in, since I've been alive, but we're different. Uh, so, and we're also, there's also an exhibit that you could touch upon that's called Counter Histories, and that's going to be going on for the next few years. Um, and it changes, uh, they just cut down one of my favorite pieces, but it changes it, but it is, it is looking at history and then the counter history. You know, how this history has impacted a particular culture, whether in the, it's mostly in the United States in this way, but, you know, we're not, we don't want to make other cultures exotic or strange. Uh, we want to look at them from a different world view. Something that is more open, you know, that won't, uh, pigeonhole different. People bringing people together can open up their minds and make connections and create a world where all belong, or a community. And I can get, uh, about ten people into the museum for free. It is, um, I haven't, I've talked to somebody a little bit about it, but I haven't really investigated it. I can bring it up to the, uh, to the manager of, uh, learning and community engagement and see if there's anything they could do. But I can get at least ten people in. And, uh, you know, we want to bring in people who don't feel like, who look and go, oh, all this neoclassical, you know, outdoors and this isn't for me. But it is, it's for everybody. And we have something for everybody. Anybody have any questions? Uh, yeah. Um, so a tour group, how big is a tour group? Well, um, how many would you want in your tour, this, to do with this group? Um, sixteen. You know, somewhere around there. They, sometimes this type of group can work better a little smaller, because there can be a discussion. People can ask about it. People can ask about it. I mean, that can happen in any group, too, though. Um, and we want, we would, we have assisted listening devices. We can, you know, provide for more people to be able to hear in the group. Um, it is, as I said, we, we use, I mean, I couldn't include IDEA in all my tours. You know, whether it's looking at how things have changed, how colonialism and empire are, all the, all these pieces. You know, things like that. And I would gear it to a specific, uh, you know, if you have any input of what you want to see, I can do that, too. Do you include as part of your tours who, who owns the art and where it comes from? I'm thinking about, um, the theft of the Louvre, because we were talking about it in my French classes. And in French, a lot of the, some of the, some of the commentary was about who, who owned those jewels originally. And I'm wondering if that's part of the conversation at the MFA. It is. So we had the first, um, curator of providence, providence in the United States. And we are very careful. In fact, we just sent back a lot of things and they take every, every request seriously. Um, and, and, and those happened to be the Benin bronzes that they sent back. Um, and Simon Shama did Civilizations in 2015. Well, when Kenneth Clark did it in, uh, 1998, Civilizations included, it was all Western Europe, Assyria. He's a British historian and it was on the BBC. When Simon Shama did it in 2015, it was, um, the whole, it was the whole world, Civilizations. The one of the episodes started with, these are the Benin bronzes. They were rummaged and pillaged from, you know, it's like, okay, right, be really direct about it. So, um, you know, we have given those things back. And we do have someone, I mean, I don't know the problem, the providence is always available. It's available on the website. Uh, if there's any questions, they certainly address it. The, um, we might get, um, the library has, don't they have free tickets? Passes. Yes, there's always passes. Yes. So that might be possible too. And they're members too. Somebody will remember. Somebody will remember. Yeah. Yeah. If somebody were a member. And, you know, Karen and I had talked briefly, it's not something we'd probably do in the winter. Uh, not this winter, I don't know. Until the spring. Yeah. Yeah. But maybe in the spring. And it's, you know, it is, it's exciting for me to be able to do it. For your own community. For your own community that you live in. Right. Right. Yes. And I mean, you guys have done so much and it, I think it kind of connects with that. Yeah. And so I was wondering, um, do you guys think if, like, if we could find funding for a bus, for example, and everybody would go together, but I know your experience, Marianne, sometimes with buses for like going in for the MLK lunch, they provide a bus and then nobody from Island uses if they just drive in themselves. So I don't know. Oh yeah. If people would take the bus if we got one or would they drive it themselves? Well, what might help with this is just, it's, it's a very specific, you're going in to do the tour and then you expect to be going home versus the, uh, an event that is more open ended that people don't necessarily, um, and you have to pay for parking when you get there. So there's an advantage to having a bus, but a bus does add a lot of expense to it. And I don't know that we could find funding for it. It was just something I wanted to know. Are there the smaller, uh, the smaller buses through the school if we could partner with the schools somehow? Aren't there the, I don't know, is it boosters? You know, they have the smaller buses for team, for some of the smaller teams or something, or are they used to? I don't know. Well, I, I, I remember the COA used, used to have like a little. Yeah, that's true. They have a van. That's true. I think it holds like up to 12. The Council of Nature. Yes. Yeah. I guess we should. Hopefully the COA has a, and this type of events too, right? They have these, yeah. Should we kind of put target to a particular group or should we, uh, do it as a general one to all the women and citizens? Well, I think, wait. I think it is possible. You want to use this or something. Dr. Julie Secord, but then she'd have to find a volunteer. Because I think the bus, the COA bus is driven by a volunteer. Oh, it's not. It's not done. Yeah, I can't recall either. Well, we're not doing it right away, so we have time to kind of inquire about these. In other words, it's not being done by somebody who's paid. But I also don't know, you know, the COA has certain expense issues that are supposed to be for, um, a certain group of people that they, you know, so, but that would just mean that we need funding if we were going to rent their bus. I don't know what it would look like, but we would have to just ask because they have, you know, pockets where they get their funding from. So we'd have to make sure that we could use it, and it was convenient. But we've got a couple of choices here. So what Yangwu said, asked a good question, was, are we talking about targeting a particular group or trying to get a cross-section of people? I would, I would seem to think it would be a cross-section. Yes. As opposed to targeting into a specific group. Yeah. Well, there's always that. Why did you choose this group and not that group? Right. But also this is an opportunity. Well, that's why you want the cross-section. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And intergenerational. I mean, it's a nice opportunity, cross-cultural, intergenerational. And I think that is what it's meant to be, is cross-cultural. So what we can learn about someone else's culture, you know, maybe by something they choose to talk about, and certainly talk about different objects and the part they play in the culture, but people can really look at things and a lot of times they have a very special meaning for them. Hmm. So how long, how long? Um, my tours go an hour, but frequently they go an hour and a half. Well, I was wondering, just in terms of numbers, because 16 doesn't sound, I don't know what kind of turnout we would get, but if we got more turnout, could we do something like, it's a two hour experience, one hour, the first half of the group is with you, and the other half can explore, and then the other hour, the second half, like there could be some creative ways. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. So that it's smaller groups, but more people can attend. It doesn't just need to be a, um, I haven't actually talked to, and kind of run by a few people, but I haven't actually called, talked to, uh, Museum Learning and Community Engagement to see how, I've talked to, I'm not the manager of Learning and Community Engagement yet. Uh, I am part, I do access tours too, which is accessibility. And those tours are, you know, different groups have a bus, they come in, they all come in for free. Um, I don't know that they've done anything quite like, I mean, they have some, you know, these are, uh, they can have veterans groups come in. We've done people with disabilities, special needs, uh, all kinds of things. And, uh, a community like LaSalle, which is a place, uh, a retirement place, where people need to select something, uh, educational to do. So those people come in on bus also. So how that would fit in, I could investigate more, but, uh, and what we can do. But we have, you know, a lot of tours that do come in, uh, to the museum. Great. And a lot of them, you know, some of them have no guide at all. Is this an opportunity to bring a bus in and where would I park my bus? You know, they have a special place for that. So to Heather's clever idea, um, what I'm wondering. So if, let's say we got 32 people who are interested, um, would that mean like five get in for free from the first group and five get in for free from the second group? Because you've got a 10, 10 people free total? We could, we could reserve the library passes too. Yeah. How many are there? I don't know. I thought there were just a couple. You know, I get, you know, two or four. Yeah. Like a special request. Float this idea to them. Yes. Of course. And, you know, they used to give us, just hand them to us if we'd ask. And I don't know whether it, to be negotiated, to be, to be, to be, you know, you're being known right now. And I have a friend who also gets 10 passes, you know, 10 passes that could probably do it. I mean, certainly I've done that for other people too, you know. I'm trying to imagine the registration form. That's actually what, I'm like, oh my God, how do we do the registration form? We can figure it out. And a flyer. A flyer, yes. So we should have an idea about what we're shooting for because we have some things to develop, you know, like transportation and, you know, I guess we would just advertise like we advertise anything else. And you could, we also could put it, it could end up being in the park and the recreation brochure. I mean, it could be a recreation program. Oh, and do they have a bus or something that if it is? I don't know what it is. It's worth asking. Yeah. I mean, certainly because they, that goes to every household, that brochure. That's a good idea. And so we should at least ask. So is that a Geno thing? Who's the most connected to the rec department from the festival? Yeah. The head of recreation. Yeah. Would that be Geno? Like who would reach out to Catherine? That's what I'm saying. Would Geno reach out or you or? Yeah, I'd be happy to reach out to Catherine. I was also wondering, Karen, what you think about the way you talk about it as, you know, kind of build this special tour with you as multi-generational and multicultural. But what if, what if we talked with Julie Secord about, you know, co-sponsoring it with the Council on Aging? I think if we could have sponsored it, you know, as a, as an outing from Wayland. That would be a nicer ask for help figuring out transportation. They haven't done that many times before with different museums. We could have talked it in so many different ways, right? So there's, um, one, one agency within, uh, Wayland or multiple done. It's a general interest or all seniors or young people. So we needed to, to decide. I'm pretty sure that for each of those, we probably can find 15 people. Um, I did just look on the library website. There's only one pass at the library. So that's . Well, it looks like we have some work to do. We can't work out all these issues. Yeah. I mean, I would, I know the Council on Aging does take people in, um, physically bar and bloom. Um, but they don't necessarily, they don't do a, they don't do a private tour, which they offer. Um, they just take the bus in and park it and let the, you know, the participants go into the museum. And they would easily use their membership or pay for it. So I think we should think about the co-sponsors too. Because if the co-sponsor, if COA is the only co-sponsor, that's going to signal that this is for older people. So then we need to have a co-sponsor who is more representative of younger people also. And then Sophie, I was also thinking, would we, would, would students be welcome? Would students even consider going on a tour with a bunch of grownups? I don't know if that would have an impact on the timing with school. Yeah. Well, this would be a weekend. Students, students do their own tours. I mean, we have a, we have school room tours. Oh, so that would be some. And, uh, I don't, I don't know that much about their tours. I mean, I know, I know somebody had said to me, oh, my kids love the, you know, from Wayland. But I haven't heard anything lately about it, whether Wayland incorporates that into their curriculum. But I know, then boy, it's a long day. Yeah. Sophie, you don't happen to know whether the schools do an MFA tour, using a fine arts tour, do you? I have not ever heard of one, but. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Don't worry. No, that's fine. So. Yeah. Do you plan to have one tour or multiple tours? Or do you think that you, do you, it's possible to have multiple tour guides like you? I don't know how you called it and took off of the tours. That is a possibility too. I mean, there's another guy from Wayland. There's two other guys from Wayland. Oh, who? One of them is gone for a while. And the other is Irene Chang, who, you know, really kind of focuses on Asian art. But that's fun too. Yeah. That's cool. Maybe, um, we could see if, as part of their work around belonging and community, when you can, would, um, that's also a, something, feels like a different demographic. And it would be a nice chance for people to come together. Yeah. With Council on Aging. So for the cost, I wonder if we were only able to get 10 passes, could you just do the math? And it's a reduced cost for everybody. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's true. Well, you know, we haven't even asked the MFA. They might, they might think this idea is so great that it's going to become a total free for everybody. Right. So. One woman just lost her father. So that, you know, I couldn't really, it was in the holidays. So I had to get, I guess, um, wait. So what I wonder is, do we have one or two people on the HRDIC who would like to work with Karen to develop this and then, and bring it back, you know, in January or February? I'd be happy to. I would do that. Okay. Okay. I can do it. Great. Wonderful. Well, we, I can give you everybody's contact info. Yeah. Wonderful. And as a final comment, I have to say, I mean, one of the things that we were doing at the human rights day was try to think about the things that we could do as action steps. And you were at that other conversations were changed. So, so for, you know, the group is visiting, you know, we've had a couple of events where people were mixing and thinking about what they could do. And, and even what we just read where we say, you know, our task isn't to fix the entire world. That's men, the part of the world that we are in. Exactly. And here you are. Exactly. Thank you so much for that. So. Yeah. Thank you. It really, you know, it really would be my pleasure, you know, for my community. Thank you. I really, I mean, you know, I think it's important. Exactly. It's wonderful. So do we, should we vote to say, yes, we'd like to do this. I think we don't necessarily know who the, I mean. Right. Or do we, maybe do we wait until January and January, but we have more information. Sure. That's fine too. I think, and we are, I think clearly we're clearly in agreement. Yes. That this is something we would like to do. And then maybe we can take a more concrete vote in January. Yeah. If the three of you come back with something. Yeah. That's fabulous. Thank you. Yeah. You're welcome. It's exciting. Really my pleasure. And Marianne, thank you for tying it to the thing that we read earlier. That's, and to the human rights day. Like that's really beautiful. Yeah. Wonderful. You're welcome to stay and hang out. Yeah, I'll stay. Great. Thank you. It's nice to have guests, especially since we're missing how many people? One, two, three, four, we're missing five people. So it's thank you for filling in for us tonight. Beautiful. Okay. So the next item, item number eight on the agenda is discussion and possible vote to co-sponsor a four session community conversation series with the Wayland Public Schools called Conversations Not Confrontations led by Jameel Adams and to seek $3,430 to fund the series. Actually, maybe we don't want to vote on it quite this way in case we don't get funding from this organization, but from the Lydia Mariah child fund. Oh, and or other sources. That's how we worded it just in case. So this goes out of Heather and I mentioned this last at our last meeting when we were brainstorming about programming ideas, and it grows out of a conversation Heather and I had with Caroline Hahn, the director of diversity equity and belonging for the public schools. following the incident at the high school on October 30th, there was a lot of, you had a good word for it, describing the conversation on the Wayland community forum. Just the tone, the lack of respect that we wanted to talk about. How could we have more respectful conversations when we disagree or have differing opinions? And the idea would be sort of doing some skill building in Wayland for having difficult conversations without resorting to yelling at each other virtually or insulting. And, you know, to bring some humility into the conversations, which I think is, personally, is really missing. And so Caroline Hahn thought this was a good idea, and she connected with the superintendent and assistant superintendent, who also thought it was a good idea. And so we connected with Jamil Adams, who was the person at the Human Rights Day event. Jamil also helped create, actually, he was the guy who started the freedom teams in Massachusetts and helped Wayland develop our freedom team. So we thought he would just be a great person to, he's so kind and just a perfect person to lead this. And so you all should have received a draft. We've actually got a newer draft, but no, no, I think I sent you the newer draft also. So welcoming people's thoughts about that, suggestions, questions. But even if you only looked at the earlier draft, that's fine, too. I mean, we just filled it out a little bit. Yeah, it's not. It's not substantial. Content hasn't changed. Yeah. Questions, comments? Well, he mentioned it, actually, at the event, at the Human Rights event. I think it's great and it's important things to do. We certainly want to have the communications where the people really be able to know how people can get on each other. Hey, Yawu, would you be willing to move your camera so we can see your face? Okay. Thank you. Because I wasn't sure if you were talking to us or someone else just then. Would you mind repeating what you just said? I think this is a really great thing that people, when the people meet each other, talk, and then they will understand them more. I think just like we had a lot, the human rights, I mean, the human rights days. Yeah. Those kind of interactions, and here we can focus on the school issues, which we had so many problems. And it's really important for us to do something in this area. Yes, Kevin. Karen, I got a couple of questions. Sure. When is this fourth session? Yeah. When's it supposed to start? January, and I don't know whether we can achieve that or not because we don't have the funding yet. Well, I was going to say, can we table this until the table it? Because like you said, we don't know if we're going to get the funding. Yeah, I think it's important that we vote on it so that when we apply for the funding, we're applying with the full voice of this committee. Okay. All right. So, um, should I make a motion that we co-sponsor? Sure. Thank you. To co-sponsor the, um, four-session, um, conversation series with, conversations, conversations with, on the series. And just to correct, it's $3,430 just to make sure we get that. Sorry, love. Yeah. So, um, well, first of all, we, we do, um. Oh, yeah. Is there a second? Sorry. Is there a second? Yeah. Can we have? Yeah. Then we can still have comments. Wait a minute. We still have to second it. But someone needs to second it and then we can get more comments. I can't second it. No. Second. I'll second it. Okay. Yeah. Go ahead. Then you can comment. Um, so we have, um, Dr. Hayes's final, um, conversations for change. Yeah. We don't actually want to have this start before that conversation, which I think is the 14th of, um, January. And actually it's hard to imagine we'd pull this all together really to have that happen before that event. Cause we still have to advertise for it. So we really need to get people's attention. We don't even have a flyer yet. Nevermind the money or any of that. Well, yeah, it's ambitious. So, um, okay. The, um, well, I'm just saying we get those things in order, um, uh, then, uh, the, um, I just wanted to make sure we didn't try to be pushing ahead of Dr. Hayes's talk. If you'd like to finish that up. That's January 15th. Yeah. And this is January 13th. And the reason for that is that it's like the sec, uh, January or second Tuesday of each month for four months. I see. But we, um, we may or may not make it for the January 13th when the holiday's coming up. That's, that's what we aim for. Uh, my personal feeling is if we can't make January 13th, we start February 10th and we push it out through until May. Well, I guess I, oh. Let me ask you this, um, now that you've mentioned it. Can this conversations be conversations or four sessions conversations for January and January? Yes. Okay. So we're basically we're under no pressure to be ready for January. Well, I think, um, there was a sense, you know, of urgency around just the, especially the conversations on the Wayland community forum, which is our, um, social media page. It's a private social media. Private Wayland. Yeah. Which was avoid the adjectives, but it was really unpleasant following that incident of people casting judgment on other people's children, which I just think is so okay. Um, and we want to, you know, we want to get in there on the heels of it, but we have to be realistic about what we can do. So well, and I think we have to be, uh, take into consideration something that's already happening and we don't want to, we don't want to take away the support for that. I don't think it takes away the support. Is your concern fewer people would come because it's two nights in the same week? Yeah. Yeah. Um, in the winter, would we have the same audience? But, you know, I don't think, you know, the likelihood of that really happening, but the, um, the idea of we'd love to do something with the schools. I'm just actually, I'm quizzical because you're talking about, it was adults having these conversations and yet the school was involved. Can you, is there some conversation about that that I missed? They're doing their own thing with the kids. Like they're doing their stuff with the kids and that's not really our bailiwick, our, you know, so, so this is our way to collaborate with them. But for the adults in the community, parents, um, in particular, uh, but any, and all adults. Would you say they're doing something with the kids? They're doing something around, um, conversations, not confrontations? I don't think specifically that, but I, but I know they're doing a lot of work with the kids post incident. I know, but I, I, I don't think they're doing exactly that. We've also, yeah, we've heard through the superintendent. I think he mentioned, you know, in some of the public meetings comments that, I mean, where the schools could use our help is working with adults. You know, they have access to kids. They don't have really access to adults, um, or even families really. Well, that's great. Actually, I think that's a, that's a wonderful link and how wonderful to work with the schools in this way. Exactly. This is a blessing. Yes. This is a silver lining. Because they want to work with us. They want to work with us on it, so. Wonderful. This is a co-sponsor with the school. That means we work together with the school. Yes. It's not just our programs. Yes. It's not, they're not just doing promotion or whatnot. Just to actually make this work together. Yes. So we probably need to talk with them. Work with them to, when it's starting January or February, it will be a co-decision, is it? Correct. We, Heather and I have been working closely with Caroline Hahn, the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Belonging. The proposal you see is a joint effort. And all of it, the dates, everything about it is a joint effort. And in fact, on the version of the proposal I sent you, I misunderstood Caroline Hahn. Her name will be on the proposal. And we don't know if the Superintendent's name will be on it too. We're kind of waiting to hear back who's, whose names from the school should be on it. But their names will be on it too. It'll be totally a joint submission. And yes, they will be able to help publicize it as well. It might actually be able to be in, not just the fall school's calendar, but each school's calendar. Yeah, that's true. Great. So is, well, we already passed that we were in. We haven't voted. We haven't voted yet. Yes. Are there any other comments or questions before we vote? All right. Well, let's, let's vote to do the thing that Kevin said. I'm not going to repeat it. I don't vote you. Thank you. You want to leave the motion? Oh, sure. Oh, sure. Thanks. Thanks a lot. Yes. Okay. Great. Go ahead. I make a motion that we, um, that we co-spon- Co- Human Rights, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. Co-sponsor. Four-Session Committee. Conversations. Series. Public Schools, Conversations.com. Led by Janelle Inam. Yeah. Mariah. Other sources. Yes. Thank you. All right. Let's vote then. Heather. Yes. Raul. Yeah. Kevin. Yes. Geno. Yes. Marianne. Yes. Sophie. Yes. And Karen. Yes. I'm excited to co-sponsor this, which is great. It positions us well to go in with this proposal. So thank you, everybody. And that actually is a nice segue into the next topic, which is a little more open-ended than than the other topics. than the other topics. than the other topics. So last time, November 18th. So- Is this on the programming? Is this number nine we're talking about? Sorry. Yes. Number nine, continued discussion and possible vote on 2026 programming ideas. Okay. So we just voted on one, actually. So thank you for that. And that is the first one that appears on this next document, which is a summary of programming ideas that we brainstormed at our November 18th meeting. And- And we already added a new one. We talked about- The MFA. The MFA. Yeah. So what category does that go under? Let's just think about that. I don't know if it goes under any of these bridging differences, maybe. How about that? Sure. We'll add it to the first topic. Thank you. Wonderful. So these are categorized. You could categorize them many different ways. This is the topics I put there, but they could be something different. And Heather looked this over as well. This- This grows out of- Last time we talked about, like, what can we do following the incident? But also- But it isn't only about the incident. It's just, you know, in light of all the things happening in our world and happening in Wayland. What can we do to make this place better? Make this place a place where everybody feels they belong. That is our ultimate goal. So the first category of stuff we brainstormed was bridging differences. And we talked about the conversations, not confrontation series, which we just decided to go ahead with. Somebody said- Oh, I know. Anyway, it doesn't matter. But suggested, like, a motivational speaker or a panel with breakout rooms. But what's interesting about that, that's what Wayland Khan is going to be doing. So we have been talking with Wayland Khan to try to figure out if our programs can overlap or we can work together. And our series of conversations kind of lead up to and then follow a speaker that they're planning, they're working on bringing. But I think that's still in progress. They don't have a date yet. But end of March is what they're leaning toward. And it's somebody, a kind of a nationally known speaker who talks about communicating across differences. And he's very young and charismatic. And maybe they're, I don't know if they're going to do breakout groups with that. But, so yeah. So we've got that going too. Not we, but in the town. And then the MFA, we're going to add that to our first category of bridging differences. And then the second category we talked about, I don't know if you're welcome to summarize these or I can. Go for it, Mike. Oh, computer. Second category was fostering solidarity and reducing conflict among underrepresented groups. In other words, these days there's so much division among groups that would be much better off in solidarity with one another and not fighting one another or competing for scarce resources. And so this one is how can we get groups that are, whatever you want to call it, underrepresented minority groups. There's a lot of different ways to say it. And some of these words have resonance that people don't like. So whatever word you want to choose. How do we get people feeling a sense of solidarity rather than competition among one another? And someone suggested like a speed dating game. Actually, Janot, I don't, this is the one you talked about, to encourage people to talk with one another. And then you mentioned a world cafe model. Do we want to unpack those two a little bit? Thank you, Maryam. Do we want to unpack generally? Yeah. So the speed dating and the world cafe are, I mean, they're, they're related but complimentary. They're just interactive methods. The nice thing about the speed dating is that you can do it for a very limited amount of time. You can give people five to seven minutes and it gets everybody standing up and moving around. So it elevates energy and it feels like a game. There's a time pressure. So actually heart rates go up and people are seeking to connect with each other. So it's a great way to set the stage to then go into more contemplative, reflective and deeper small group discussions, you know, in a, in more of a world cafe method. But you know, in world cafe, I mean, there, there are different degrees of structure. You need some structure so that it's not just completely open ended because that wastes time. But you can also give the group prompts so that they co-identify what one or two things that they really want to talk about. And I think the, you know, the facilitation is important so that people feel that there is structure, but also feel that everyone has a chance to express themselves. And the reason that you want people to feel like there's some structure is that that makes, it makes people feel secure. They, they, you know, they feel that, Oh, we're all operating under common ground rules. This is what they are. And this space is maybe, you know, maybe safe. But what we're really striving for is for people to feel brave. So let me pause and ask a question. Cause we have, I don't even know how many more, 20 more bullets here. This year we now have the, hopefully the conversations, not confrontations and the MFA. Tour coming up in the kind of winter, spring timeframe. And then it's summer. So do we want to keep brainstorming these to think about what we could do in the fall? Because we do have a long list of possibilities. We're not, when I'm listening to you talk, I'm thinking we, I don't know how we would squeeze in one more thing this year. Do you, in 20, in the first part of the first part of the academic year. So I just would love some help thinking that through. I don't see it. Well, in another event, you know, in the fall, we have to the festival. So now I'm thinking, Oh, we have all these great ideas. Oh, actually, practically speaking. Well, are there any of them, we had also talked about, are there any other ones that we thought maybe community members would like to help organize it wouldn't necessarily be run by us. You could connect with people. What was the working together across differences on specific tasks, the representative working group. Wasn't there a community member who had that idea? Yes. Correct. Correct. Yes. So I'm wondering if there's like, if we could plant that, be a seed planter instead of a farmer. We can help grow some of them, but we can plant seeds that other folks might help us pick up. Because as a small group, we can't, we can't do everything. And I would suggest that, I mean, you know, 11,000 people live in town. 11,000 people are going to come to every single event here, but that it's okay if we're end up attracting, even reaching out to like the garden book to do the cooking class or whatever. Yes, that it's okay because you might get a larger concentration of people from a certain group. And then, you know, just like with any kind of diversity work, it's always better when more people are involved and learn. And then they, they continue on their journey of learning together through their mutual experiences. So, you know, because yeah, this is a huge list and everybody's not going to go to everything. And my experience in the past and in diversity events that, you know, because we've had a number of diversity groups over the 30 years I've lived here. You know, you don't want to get to the point where only the organizers are there. And so we want to engage more people and organizations in this effort. And so even though not everyone's going, stuff is happening. And there's that conversation bubbling up all in pockets everywhere. Not siloed, but you know, the room only holds so many people. And could some of these ideas be piggybacked? Like Jenna, when you were speaking, I was thinking, that is so cool. And could it be piggybacked on another event that's already happening in town? But I, I don't know what that might be. The festival. We'll have that in a tent. It'll be the dating, you know, that could be a time. Could we also connect? Could this be an opportunity to connect with folks on the town, in the town? Like the community center of having that takes some ownership to reach out and bring in, just bring in a working group. Can we, could they set up a meeting with a diverse group of people to say, here are some ideas. We're wondering about using this space because I think we talked last time that the space is set up to be used by, Janelle, what percent did you say? Or somebody told us what percent of the time that was for community space. But actually, you know, there isn't, we just learned there isn't really a group or an organization that is planning the community center side. You know, COA is focused on, you know, their activities and their use of that building. But there's kind of a move of foot to try to create an entity to do programming and planning for the community center side. Exactly. And that's what this thing is under working together across differences on specific tasks. That's what that first bullet is. And is there a point person that maybe, you know, we could have a meeting. We could invite them to one of our meetings to have a conversation about, about some of the ideas. Or I don't know what, I haven't helped this yet. There was someone who mentioned it. I have some experience. Greenland Chinese American Association just talked with, working with the COA. Got it like two hours every other week to get together, provide this program for the seniors. So I, I, we stopped, stopped. Actually, there's a meeting right after this. So I joined them to talk about what we are going to do. So we may want to think about, we make it a two hours. A week, a month, or two, every other week. So that we can do something. We can think about what we can do to promote our needs. And would that be, I'm sorry, I will. Would that be something that, or is that just to use this space? Or would it be open to the community? The Chinese WCA will run the program. Okay. We'll suggest, probably like a Tai Chi class, or some kind of game class, something like that. And then we can... For the whole community? Or with the COA? They do it as part of the COA. But we can do it as part of the community. Because that could be a model that... Community service. That, that can be a model for us. Maybe we can offer some kind of videos, courses, or just discussions. We'll watch a video. And then we discuss the content, or the video, or different topics. Either understand others. Because the way, especially America here, we don't understand the rest of the world. When we say World Series, we're talking about North America. Okay? Right? So we really have that... I think, how do we open that view? How do you know how the people are living on the other side of the world? Is that really what we're thinking? Okay? We could... That could be a topic. And we can... Is it organized the tours? Or... Organized... Or... Um... The videos... Uh... Discussions. And all kinds of things. So even... Even foreign language conversation. You know... Yeah. For example, I mean, there may be people who are, you know, studying... Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Cantonese. I don't know. Who might like to join a conversation group to get practice. That's true, too. Exactly. You would be surprised. And maybe... Read some cultural... You know, you have some little tiny homework for the meetings. I used to go to a German language group at Weston Community Center. Oh, that's great. Well, and it makes me wonder, too, if... If we could get something like that going, if we could also partner with... Um... Park and Rec. So it's in the brochure as... As activities using that space more and more. And... And the more... If we could reach out to different groups in town to offer things that are... related to a specific culture or something that would... For learning, like you're talking about. Or languages or whatever it is. I mean, it could be like Spanish music. You know, learning songs. Salsa dancing. Well, I think... Janelle, I think the idea that was presented to us was that someone, whoever was organizing this, would reach out to these different communities within Wayland and find out what their needs are and what, you know, what they would like. But I don't know that we have an organizer for that effort. Yeah. We don't... We don't as yet. Although... We know we've had conversations with somebody who's highlighted this. Yes. But who... I don't think who's necessarily wanting to lead that effort. I don't think. But what I wonder, when you talk with Catherine, do you think the Rec Department would be interested in actually initiating something like that to reach out to different parts of the community with regard to the use of the community center? Or is that outside their... I know they have a lot on their plate. They're pretty busy. But I can certainly ask. Because that could be a place to start. We probably could use them to support us. They definitely have a lot of resources. I think like this Multicultural and this Wayland Festival. They have so much resources. But we probably don't want to come out with ideas that meet our goal. They will be the ones who help us in certain things. For example, they can help us to do the sign-up. To do this kind of work. Or we could invite them to be part of this planning. It's almost like a Multicultural Festival. We started. We expanded. We started with some more specific ideas of what we can do. Which is more really can reach or go. Then we can expand that to include different people. They really have the attendance on that. And make it more permanent or more ongoing things. I wonder if the council... I mean, the Park and Rec even would put into their brochure or some sort of call or even Michael McCall in the town email thing. Some sort of call for interested in sharing dance, music, culture, food, something. Reach out and to let people know that the Council on Aging I mean, the Council on Aging slash new community center is a space that people could use. Is there some way to create kind of a buzz around that and actively reach out. And see if anybody would like to lead any programs. Even if it's... To your point, Yaowoo. Even if it's just a one two-hour session that somebody volunteers to do. And little by little it picks up. And all of a sudden maybe once a week there's some different type of session run by different community members. And maybe one's a foreign film. Like to... I don't know. There's one. So all the thousands of people who are watching this. If anybody's interested, reach out to us. Well, we haven't asked... We haven't actually asked people. I mean, actually the recreation brochure has, you know, a lot of those programs are, you know, someone people pay for, you know, and people come to the town. I don't know how much, and I don't know if you know, but how much recreation says, oh, we want a art class. Or we want a this. You know, I think it's kind of a collaborative. Because I think last time I tried to do something, it was, you know, like, you know, how it's paid for. And the person who comes in. So how that is all arranged. But to actually ask, it's kind of like the festival. You're asking people to participate, and how would they like to participate. And we try to fit... We try to create some superstructure for them to kind of key in on as their afternoon of conversation. Or... I wanted to bring up one other topic, though. You know, and it's kind of... I don't know. It just occurred to me. I want to... You know, one of our charges is that we are advisory to the select board. And, you know, it's important to work out, reach out to the community. But I don't want to forget that voice that we bring to them, both either in their training, because they're making decisions that, you know, it's... You know, all of our leaders, it always helps to have some background in the work that... The kind of things that we talk about. And we know there's a lot of... It takes a lot of time for all of the people who work on our boards. And it's hard to carve out the time to educate people about this. But we should think about that in our effort to reach out to the community. We also want to help advise our leaders. So... Anyhow. That's just something to put in the back. Well, which is the other piece that's not even in here. You're right. That that is our... One of our primary charges. And we have the equity assessment that's not on the agenda tonight. But that actually should be another... It's a key piece of ongoing work that we're trying to do. That we need to keep front and center. And that is directly advising them. I mean, I wonder if it wouldn't be a good suggestion from us to ask the select board to consider establishing some sort of a part-time position for coordinating community center activities. And I think that's kind of the hurdle that we're dancing around. We, you know, rec can manage some pieces, COA can manage some pieces, but there isn't really... There's no one who is in charge of community center programming. And it's hard to sync up with the recommendations coming out of the community engagement report. Unless there's someone who has this kind of, you know, focus of how to connect the dots. I would think there, you know, is there some sort of structure that can be set up for, like, signing up for spaces there? Like sort of the town pool when you sign up for a swim lane. You know, but you could sign up for a space and what you're doing there. There are a lot of structures that could be put in place that would help. But I think you're right. Having someone oversee that would be important. I think it's because COA has its own structure. So we don't want a parallel structure. We want one that's integrated. Yeah. I think I have some experience on this. The opponent counts. Okay. If we have someone to responsible for all the programs for the community center, then the good part is we may be able to fill a lot of things. And the drawback is the way our resource, the people's interest that may be, how do we, with less creativity, we have less creativity because this organization become the one to come out, all the ideas. And I'm involved with the Greater Boston Chinese Cultural Association, which we do have a community center. And most of the programs we are running is open. Whoever wants to run the program, they can rent a space from us or sign up. We have to charge because we have to maintain it. So now we have 20-some programs every week, different interests with different peoples. And there's always coming new ideas. We want this kind of classes or that kind of activities. So how do we balance these kind of creativities? Or to have a centralized people, think about, oh, we have to have the square dance. We have to have that. I think we, with time being, I actually am in favor of having this space available. We have a rule that says that it's a way of encouraging the time people to use that space for the service, for all kinds of interesting groups. I think we may want to start with that. Yeah. And the space does have a cost. Yeah. It's be helpful to have that information, Michael or whoever has it. I'd be curious to know what percent of the time the space is used and there are rooms available. But also, what are the protocols around it? Are there expenses? Who can use it? All those kinds of things would be helpful to know. And, you know, we've talked about the town green. I mean, the town center and the town green. And that's one of the reasons they were so excited that the festival was going to be there. Because this is a space that they would like to see used. You know, we haven't had anything necessarily. It's not in the most convenient spot. But, you know, it is there. Kind of like the Natick town commons area. They have a Natick common cultural center committee that oversees the use of that common area in Natick. And so, I don't think we're there yet. But it's, you know, certainly something to think about. But that space is there. And how that it could be used to serve our purposes. So, anyhow, just another. This is good. What I think is, we should talk to Michael about it. And, Janot, if you check with the rec department. And then probably also checking with the Council on Aging itself. To just, with, what's her name? Julie. Julie. Julie, to find out, like, what are the procedures. And, you know, the mechanics of it. I could call Julie and find out. Another area. Okay. I have another different topic. Okay. Related to what? To what? Yeah. Yeah. So, we started a multicultural festival. Okay. Only organizations, which we really say, actively involved, other than us, is the Vietnam Chinese American Association. But now we, from the Celtic, from the Egyptian groups, seems they are active. And then we do have the Jewish group. We have the Islamic group. And then we have other groups. So, I think, somehow, we may want to make those groups more interact, more together. Maybe we have the chance to meet with all of them once every few months. And it's come up some idea of what we can do. And if they can support all the poor ones, we are thinking about how to get them involved. I think the more we do, the more we can get the different groups. I even hope that some groups with smaller numbers, like Koreans, Indians, and they haven't reached to that stage, but they do have a good number of people here. Yeah, that's really, that's a way to network, you know, so that we're not creating all these things. We're supporting the community as they create things and have been in contact like that. It would be interesting to create that. I mean, these are events, but to create, pull together these groups so that, just like, you know, when we get together with the human rights state organizations, there's so many ideas. It's actually hard to be there because I just get more ideas and I am already overwhelmed with ideas. But, you know, in that space, I mean, here's, we're building community and that, it's interesting how we might be able to get that instead of just doing all ourselves, that we're going to co-sponsor, well, instead we're just sitting there together and we're hearing about, and you know, we'll, it's not that we don't want to co-sponsor, it's just that, you know, someone else is going to do it and we're just, you know, we're just going to attend. Well, yes, and Yahoo, I think, is making the point that even if there were miraculously a half-time staff person at the town who could take on this job that we think is so important, that the advantage of us staying involved in some way is that it puts us in connection with different groups and that's really important for us and for our work. So, I think that's a great point. But it would be nice if there were miraculously a half-time staff member whose job it was to focus on this. It seems like a no-brainer. Well, it's a no-brainer, but there's no money. There's no money. There's a hiring freeze. Yeah. Yeah. But we'll take a multi-prone approach and see what we can do. Yeah, and if we can get more ideas about the structure and what's required and can get some publicity out there and we have more knowledge, we can get word out to groups about the space exists, here's what you do to be able to use it and help publicize. Yeah. You know, the Wayland Garden Club uses St. Anne of the Fields now. And they wanted to, I mean, there are different times where we've used, you know, this building. And they investigated the community center and couldn't, and I don't even remember why I looked it up. Well, because they chart, they probably said there was a fee for you to use it. But people always had a fee. I mean, it wasn't, we did Trinitarian for a while. And they had a fee, you know, different places we weren't. I don't, I don't remember enough of it right now to speak to it, but they looked into it. Let's, let's explore it. It feels like this is one that we're really interested in. Which one is that? The, the, under working together across differences on specific tasks. It's the first bullet and that's what we're really talking about here. And all these others can sit here and wait until we're ready to address them some other time. But I feel like we've got some energy around this, this one item around the community center. And it's very timely. And maybe, Jano, someday we can get all these different groups at the community center and do the speed dating thing. So let's just keep all of this in mind. I did have one question just in terms of that title. The Fostering Solidarity, the second title. Yeah. Is that supposed to only be amongst underrepresented or historically marginalized groups? Or is that within the community? It doesn't have to be. Oh, okay. Because I didn't know how, like where the commas were. Yeah, exactly. Some of, yeah, exactly. Some of these, these were placeholder titles to figure out how to group some of these, but no, it's not wedded to that. Well, I guess I want to suggest that since it's 7.40. And so is there anything else that anybody sees on this list that you feel like we ought to address tonight or should, can we come back to it? No, Kevin. No, Kevin. We live festival. We live festival. We live festival. That's not on our agenda. Okay. I think we need to think about who will be, other than Chanel, who will be continuing representing us at the Weyland Festival. I can tell, but I don't have the energy that I had before to do that much. So we probably looking for someone more, more involved. And I will be just on, I still can attend to some meetings, but. Support us. Yeah. Yeah. I think the structure that we're looking at, that we've, that we've just talked about in our first kind of forward looking meeting for next fall. Is that we're looking for kind of champions of different task areas. So I would just say it really should go in our announcements section of this meeting. Yeah. Can we hold off on that since it's not quite on our, on this part of the agenda? Yeah. Why don't, why don't we just hold it for that? Yeah. Okay. Put it on, maybe put it on the agenda for. Sure. For sure. For sure. Um, so the, the next item on the agenda is because we didn't quite, I feel like we didn't quite cover this, the know your rights flyer. Um, I know. I mean, we have the best of intentions, but we don't exactly really have a workable plan for getting those flyers and getting people to, to volunteer to put them up. Well, we all volunteered to ask in a couple of places, but where do we get the flyers? Well, yes. Um, maybe we, so that's why I put it on the agenda again, just like, um, would you like me to get some copies made, Marianne? Would that be helpful? Of the? Of the know your rights flyer. Well, and with the QR code. With the QR code. With both, actually, because you know, I, I know we have one flyer that really has a QR code. That's the one. You know, people need to see what the items are. But they will when they use the QR code. I suppose. Yeah, but for some people that don't know how to use the QR code, IPY is important for it. Okay. So, we could make copies of both. I mean, you could do it back to back. Um, because obviously you need the links and that only comes from the QR code. Um, so you're saying you want, on the back of the piece, on the back of the page that has the QR code, you would put the material that a person would see if they used the QR code. Correct. The Google docket. Correct. That would be a wise improvement. Okay. Right. I hate to say it. I know how to use a QR code. Thank you for acknowledging that. You know what? We don't always like to admit those things. So, I appreciate your honesty. Thank you. Um, okay. So, what, how, 25? Yeah, the hard, the hard if it's on the back. If you're putting them. Well, then I guess the per, the, the, when you take it to a sample. When you take it to a store, then you say to someone you can post it either way, whatever suits you. Well, I'll be honest, most, well, my experience with posting was not very successful. That people aren't going to want to post things. People don't want to post things. That's, that's what I'm concerned about. There are, I know the stores that have a, something to post things on, but that, like when I went through, um, the town center. Yeah. No one wanted, you know, no one wants anything in their windows. So, having said that, I mean, you know, that was just my experience that, that year. So, um. Oh, and that wasn't even this flyer. That was something else. Right. And I don't, well, it was, it was about the, um, festival. And, um, I don't even know if they have, they may have rules. Yeah. About what you can post. In, in the center about what can be posted. No one said that though to me. No one said that, well, I can't post that. So, um. But it's also all going to change because there are new owners and the new owners are very interested in changing the appeal of the town center. Well, that doesn't. Yes. But whether this would be more appealing, who knows. Um, but yeah. Yeah. I, I think they're going to be less restrictive, but they also are interested in, um, you know, putting us influence the banners and changing those banners over time. Oh. The opportunities that we can get into. Well, maybe we could ask as a start if we can put them in like the town buildings, public buildings, as a start. Certainly here. Yeah. Here. And the COA. Both of them. At the library. And I guess I would, that would be a start at least so we're doing something. Right. Um, you know, is there a way to, um, just attempt people who don't really know what know your rights means because know your rights is, is kind of a, it means something. What? Certain, certain groups who need to know their rights, but it doesn't necessarily resonate with other people who may not know what those words really mean. Right. But it could, it could mean anything to me. Right. Which is why it's good to have the other side there. Or, or do we put, uh, like just bullets underneath of what the categories are on the other sides. Right. There are questions about this, this, this, and this. Like, and that way it doesn't have to be, it could just be those, what, four categories or something. Because you still need the links. And actually, that's a whole thing too, because the ACLU website has every category under the sun. And then when we put some additional categories, it's not everything. Yeah. It's not everything that you'll see if you actually go to that website. Do you guys know about the MIRA Coalition flyer? Yes. Okay. And that's immigration, but we have disability rights, immigration, we have, um, domestic violence. Oh, this is across the board. Okay. We have a bunch of categories. And then the ACLU has, you know, you name it. There's a lot of categories. So we didn't name all those categories. But we gave the link. I can show you later. Okay. I didn't realize it was so generalized. Yes. Well, which is, which is exactly to your point. When we say, no, you're right. Yeah. I hear, no, you're right. Especially now we all see you're happening. Many of us think of MIRA at the moment. Yes. And we also have talked about broadening it so that it could reach multiple people. And we started with that. That's how we started. And then it grew into something else. So. But I think we've thought of it more, you know, as an online resource and this issue of, you know, posting flyers. Um, I mean, you know, we could ask, you know, restaurants, could we put it up in your restrooms or whatever? Yeah. Um, you know, I'm wondering in Framingham, they made these little tiny business card, business card size things that they hand out. And actually like I have one, it has the same thing in Portuguese on the back and the same thing. And the Chinese language is on the back. And I think, you know, for cops and businesses, they may be more amenable to having, you know, a little stack of business size. No, you're right. That could be the cash register, you know, on a counter, but we should, I think we should do a little bit of, um, market research. We should, we should ask, you know, some of the, you know, town center businesses, some of the constituent center businesses, how they would feel about having that information and what format might be most welcome. Right. Well, and how much information, because those cards are specific, like from Mira. Right. I just feel like with everything we have going on, we don't have the horsepower to, we don't have the manpower. Right. We don't to, to do this. So who does Mira, how, how well has that worked out for Mira? Mira? Mira. M-I-R-A. That they have, business has been open to putting, having them? I'm not sure. I don't know. I assume so. I assume, I believe in downtown framing on what's happening. So that's the thing in communities. In the library, the public library in the bathrooms. Yeah. Um, have some. So I think it depends where you are. Can we distribute the flyer to every household, every mailbox? Is that a- Is that a- It's a big expense to do a public mailing. Is it very expensive? Yeah. We don't have a budget. How about if we, we talk, you know, to some weekly supermarket ads? Can we ask them to ask a favor to insert into their distribution? And we could ask, you know, the town sent out a flyer, like with a, with our real estate tax bills, there's always a little flyer and information in there. That's a great idea. Insert. They go out anyway. And it's just a QR code if they could fit on that little flyer somewhere. All right. So we have a couple ideas that, um, for physical places, the town building, the COA, the library. Um, and then other things are the real estate flyer and even the Weyland post. Yeah. And stop and shop. Stop and shop. Outside of Walden. Outside of Walden. It's really pretty rough. All right. Well, let's, let's start with getting some, I, I can take a step and then, and, uh, figure out what we can do with the town and what they're willing to, to do. Um, I will get some copies made Marianne and I'll, could we put it in, um, the town newsletter that goes out once a month as our human rights thing, just with the link. Uh, we will, uh, I'm going to, I'm going to ask Jalen what, what we can do. Is it on our website? All the information, all the information about knowing about rights. Can I get those information from our website? Yes. Yes. Yes. That's where the QR code takes people. We have the QR code for it. Yeah. It's on the flyer and that takes people to the website. Okay. That's already done. That's great. Yes. It takes them directly to the page, not just our website. Right. All right. We'll, we'll, we'll keep this alive. I'm going to put it on next, next month's agenda. I, I commit to trying to get something done between now and next month on this. Uh, I want it. The next thing is item number 11. I, so every year, this is about the, our schedule for meeting in 2026. So every year we end up having like tonight, we are missing five people because tonight happens to be school concerts. And so our parents of school age children can't be here because their kids all have concerts. But what we do know is our February, uh, I mean, our February and April meetings do fall during school vacation week. Um, and so I'm open to suggestion. I mean, if you rejigger it, then what happens is you end up with a couple of meetings three weeks apart because you have to move it either forward or backward. And then it's too close to the, or you have too close or you, or the other thing is, do we move it to another day? Well, we now have a different configuration of people, but in the beginning when we tried to find a different day, Tuesday was the one day that seemed to, to work for everyone. Now we could switch it from the third Tuesday, but even, yes, to get it out of the school vacation weeks, we could try to switch from, from third Tuesday. Does that matter that much? Huh? Does that matter that much? I don't know. It just depends how many people. The young people, you know, the younger people with school age children will, it'll be like tonight. And also for our, for our student members, it's really not fair. And we want our students to be able to participate. Yep. Like January is a long month. So if we meet on the, or we meet on the third. We normally meet the third Tuesday. One, two, three, maybe three weeks if we met February 10th. I mean, we could just switch those or we could try for, um, it's really February and then April. February 10th is Jamil's program though, actually. Or, or can we just keep the dates and see who's available because not everybody goes away during, not everyone goes away on vacation during school vacation week. So. I know it's always hard to find dates that work for everybody. Yeah. I kind of feel like we have to keep them. And if we have a problem for them, then we'll deal with that. Case by case basis. Case by case. Cause if we start trying to change it, I think we're going to have a ripple effect of unintended. Unless we just change February and April. Yeah. I think we should change February and April. So February 10th is supposed to be Jamil's program. So. So the 24th. So it would have to be the, yeah, the 24th. And then when is the next one? March 17th. Well then March 17th. That works. And then one, two. I mean, we could do April. We could do April 14th instead of the 21st. April 24th and April 18th. That can't be a Tuesday. No, April 14th. Oh. April 14th is another Jamil program. Oh, that's right. We have to do April 28th. And then we, you know, then we're three weeks apart, which is sort of a pain. I, I'm very, I think we should just see if someone's here. If we have enough. Or. I agree. Move them all to the, from the third Tuesday to the fourth Tuesday of the month. You know, either move them all. You're going to run into Thanksgiving. I know. There'll be something. There'll be something. Like December would have been the holiday week. And November. Those would both be. Yeah. Yeah. So there's no, there's no perfect thing. So, all right. So let's keep it. We'll, we'll, we'll do our best. Are you saying keep it the third? Keep it the third Tuesday. Okay. And when the time gets closer, if we want to propose something else. Oh, I see a hand up. That's right. Hello. Hello. Sorry. I've been very quiet all night listening. That's what I'm here for. Okay. Did you want to say something now? Well, I was just going to say that I, one, wanted to thank you all for allowing us, the three of us, I think are still here. Uh, I see Matt is, I don't see where Dana is, but I'm sure he may be around. Uh, at any rate, uh, I want to thank you for allowing us to be here. And it's so interesting to see that some of the complications you may seem to be having are very similar to ours. It's not unusual. Uh, uh, sometimes then you, you, I was so grateful to hear you say that we don't have a budget. I'm sorry. You don't have a budget, but neither do I. We don't need that. Yeah. So, uh, I guess that correct. That wipes out the question. Who on your panel is, is, is, is a paid member. I guess that's not there. So, yeah. And, and that, that goes to the question of getting people involved and getting them to come faithfully to meetings, et cetera. Uh, those are problems we're facing in Framingham as, as well. Uh, but I, I applaud the efforts that you have so many items on the agenda, uh, that cover a lot of areas and a lot of bases and some you voted on and some you've hold off and you're postponing for other, for other times to get it through with it. But it's just amazing to me that, uh, the similarities are there. And, and, uh, I know you, you talked about your library and, and I, I, I know your library. I've been there. I've been there. I've been, you know, I can say that I've at least, uh, went through the door and spent some time there, but, uh, that, uh, our library is incredible with what it does and it's doing a lot of things, uh, that are posted in their, in their, in their flyer. And we have in Framingham, we have a news letter that comes out once a week from the city of Framingham and it tells something about everything. It talks about the veterans. It talks about, uh, all the different kinds of events that are going on. It's really a great one. And we've not utilized it well enough. We should be putting more items on there that are, uh, interest of us, you know, for us. And, uh, we have put on panels, you know, to, to invite people to come and, uh, and we've had a similar problem where we wanted to have, uh, flyers maybe put out and around again. It's a financial issue and, uh, and a language issue. Most of them were usually used for the main, main languages that we have. That is English, Spanish, and Portuguese. Uh, so it's, it's one of those things. But again, I don't want to take up your time. I know it's eight o'clock and I wanted to say thank you again for allowing us to be here. And, uh, we may want to come back if it's okay with you. And I promise I won't talk as long as I did tonight. Yeah. So anyway, so thank you again, you know, appreciate it. You know, and we're on zoom too, but ours are on the same time. Meeting nights is this though. We meet the second Thursday of every month. So, but, uh, you're all welcome to come and join us. Thank you. And you're all welcome to attend the mass human rights coalition meetings. I think I emailed you about that where that Marianne was referring to before where people from human rights committees and commissions from around the state, mostly Eastern Mass, but from around the state get together. Thanks for reminding me. Yeah. It's like the, I don't know. It's the first Friday. The first Friday. Yeah. It always comes up like, oh no. 9 a.m. Yeah. I know it's early. When is that perfect time? For the night, it's early, too early for the night owls, but it's a good time for other people. Um, I have one little announcement. Yes. Let's do announcements. Go ahead. So, um, I just wanted to share that, um, we've had our preliminary festival planning meeting, and we are looking for captains and also supporters for each of the major, um, Chris used the term AAA, which is attractions, amenities, or aspects of the festival. Um, so the list includes touch a truck, the parade, diversity and inclusion, which is outreach, tent pavilion, marketing, promotion, and communications, fundraising, food trucks and restaurants, abutters, and the high school team. Um, and there may be additional, um, themes that we're looking for captains for. But if you're interested in any of those areas, um, please get in touch with them. Wow. Thank you. Good luck. Uh huh. Uh huh. And, um, you were going to tell us about the, um, analysis of how many people were at the festival this past year? Yes. Sorry. Yeah. So, um, Catherine Brenna, um, rec director, um, brilliantly managed to get access. It's very expensive to get this analysis, but it's, um, it's, it's analyzing, um, individual cell phone pings, which is a proxy for how many people, uh, individuals came through the event, you know, over the whole period of time. And they came up with a number over 6,000. So that's really something. And there has also been feedback from the town center businesses. And the, uh, overwhelming feedback from the businesses is that they pretty much all had their best day ever. So very, very, um, strong, you know, positive, um, going out from townspeople and the businesses. It's going to be a very different relationship with them going.
And we're looking at, um, we're looking at October 3rd, but I want to reach out to the interfaith leaders association, uh, because it's Saturday and we want to be respectful of the Jewish, um, Sabbath. Um, but, uh, Columbus Day weekend is absolutely out. Too many people, um, are away or have other plans on that weekend. And the thing about scheduling for an outdoor event on a Saturday is that if we do have bad weather, it gives us that really important buffer opportunity to do a rain date on Sunday if we absolutely need to. Thank you so much. Those are difficult issues to navigate. And thank you for all that you and Yahoo and Marianne and others are, are doing on this festival. It's amazing. And if anybody wants to volunteer to be a captain, that sounds really important. So I like that. We're supportive. Yeah. Thank you. Captains need teams. Exactly. Um, any other announcements or topics not anticipated? 20, 48 hours and events. Yeah. If I may. Yeah. If I may. Oh, one of the things that, uh, maybe belongs in this, this circle of, uh, of opportunities. That is, uh, the Alliance for Metro West unity and organization. It was established some 38 years ago. Uh, and it, we put on a John Garahan. Breakfast at the verve. And the only reason I'm saying this now is that it's in may. And it's at the, uh, at the verve in, in native. But what we do is we solicit every school. And Waylon has been cooperative and sent us the name of a student who is a junior that does work in diversity within their schools and, or in any other fashion that they do. And the names are usually solicited to us. We take their names. We get, uh, every student gets a citation from the house, a citation from the Senate, uh, that receives a, uh, uh, a, uh, a, uh, a tuition assistance from Framingham State University and, uh, a beautiful, beautiful, big citation from the Alliance. Uh, all that they can use is references for college. So if you know your principal or you have contact with the Guardian Center, just, uh, make sure that they're participating this year. I, I hope to have the returns from students that we're giving out to 15 different schools in the, in the Metro West area. So just something to bring, think about if you happen to know somebody in the school system in the 11th grade, we want a student who does work in this area. That's right up your alley. Yeah. So send us the information so we can share it, please. Uh, well, the information has already been sent to the schools, so they have the information and, uh, I, I want to use my email address. Uh, it's Bob on spark at AOL.com. Very hard to remember, but anyway, uh, if you want to send it to us, send it to me and I'll give, send the information out to you. Be happy to do it. Thanks. Yeah. All right. Well, we appreciate Wayland's participation. Thank you. All right. And it's always good to hear another person who still has an AOL.com. Thank you. I do too. Yeah. We won't ask our age. All right. Then let us, uh, adjourn. Will somebody move for us to adjourn? I move. I move. I move. I move. I move. Immediately. Okay. Will someone second that? Second. Heather second. Okay. Let us vote on that. Um, Heather. Yes. Yes. Yahoo. Yes. Thank you. Uh, Kevin. Yes. Jenna. Yes. Marianne. Yes. Sophie. Yes. Thank you. And Karen. Yes. So we are adjourned at 8.06.
Yao Wu-Tang, no. Wait. Oh, here. I'm going to come back to him. Okay. Maya Raj is not here. Mariam Libdi is not here. Sarah Stutten is not here. Denise Fortin is not here. Kevin Goodwin? Here. Janot Mendler-Desuarez? Here. Marianne Borkowski? Here. Sophie Chen? Here. Yao Wu-Tang? Yao Wu-Tang's here. Thank you. And Karen Blumenfeld, that's me. I'm here. We also have some guests here tonight. Well, actually, first, do we have any public comment? We do not. So I want to introduce our guests tonight, who are also with us hybrid tonight. So we have Matt Brown here in person, and Dana Esigman and Bob Ansbach. That's great. Sorry? It's fine. Okay. Yeah, great. So you guys are here to join us and just to be observers of our meeting. The three of you are from the Framingham Human Relations Commission, and you asked to come to observe our meeting, because you're sort of the equivalent of us in Framingham. And so we said, of course, come observe us and see what's similar and what's different. So thank you for being here tonight. And we have another guest who will be speaking later, Karen Crown, who's going to be talking to us about the Museum of Fine Arts under agenda item number seven. So tonight, we normally do a land acknowledgement, but we are living in such challenging times. This is our last meeting of the year. It has been such a very difficult year, difficult weekend, difficult week in Wayland and beyond. Just so much senseless violence in our world. And we wanted to try something a little different tonight and do sort of within this community, do a community reading of a poem. And Marianne will get us started. So I think you sent it out to the committee. And there were, it's actually a prose. It was a letter written by a woman, a Dr. Clarissa Pincola. And so we wanted to read through them. Each paragraph had a number. Is that anybody online willing to read? Jen O. Yeah. Okay, so I handed out. So how about number one?
Yawu, are you willing to read?
I don't have a copy.
That's okay. You don't need to read. So which one do you want to know? Yawu, you read number one. And Sophie, do you have the material? Yes, yes, I have it. So do you want to read number two? Yep, I got it. Okay. Okay, and the, you want to read number three? Kevin? Sure. Yep, Kevin, I'll read four and six and seven. I have five. I have five. Four, five, and six. And I'll do seven. Who has four?
Karen, would you read it? She doesn't have one.
Does Matt have one? No, that would be the last one. You want to do the last one? Yeah, I want to do the last one. Is that all right? Of course. Of course.
So number one, go ahead and start.
We were made for these times by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes. One, my friends do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized visionary people. Two, in any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. We are needed death. That is all we can need. Resistance.
More so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us. Christ is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor, suffering world, will help immensely. It's not given to us to know which acts or by whom will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would like to help to calm the tunnel, this is one of the strongest things you can do. There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I, too, have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. So I just wanted to read about Clarissa Pinkola. She's an American poet, the Jungian psychoanalyst, post-trauma recovery specialist, author, and spoken word artist.
The Estes grew up in a now-vanished oral tradition of her immigrant refugee families who could not read or write or did so haltingly, and from whom English was their third language that overlaid their ancient natal languages. I was so touched by her history. And thank you for reading this. I felt I needed it. Let's just take a second before we segue into the next thing.
Take a deep breath, and let's move into our agenda. So we need to talk about this is item number four, discussion and possible vote to approve our meeting minutes from the last meeting. Thank you to Asma, who's not here, for putting the minutes together. And Yalu, also thank you. And Yalu, you're the note-taker tonight. Is that right? Right. Okay, thank you. Would somebody like to move to approve the meeting minutes? I move. Is there a second? So that was Kevin moving. Is there a second? A second. Janelle second. Okay, Janelle. Is there any comment?
Thank you to our drafters for the notes. Okay, if there's no comments, let's take a vote. I will go in the same order that I did before. Heather? Yes. Yalu? Yes. Kevin? Yes. Janelle? Yes. Marianne? Yes. Sophie? Yes. And me, Karen. Yes. Okay, so the minutes have passed unanimously. Thank you, everybody. Next, we're going to talk about the amazing Human Rights Day event, thanks to Marianne and Asma. And just, you know, anybody want to share any thoughts about it? And then we need to approve some payments. Well, I'll briefly say, so this is the second Human Rights Day, and for the people in our space that don't know what it was, it was a reading of the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that the United Nations passed back in 1948. And we use a simplified version, Amnesty International provides us with one sentence for each one, and we read it in multiple languages, and it's very moving. And then we have a little program, so it's not a big program, it's an hour, hour and 15 minutes, and so we try to follow that up. In this case, we talk about our Freedom Team, the Wayland Freedom Team, and then try to create some sort of visual, some activity. In this case, we thought of action items that we could do in our town, or in our lives, to support the human rights articles that we were reading. So that was the event. I think it was, anybody who was there, want to read? Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. I missed it last year, because I was away, and I was, like, just so excited to see what you and Asma organized. It was beautiful. And then the person running it, Jamil Adams, had everybody take selfies, so he would, he said, you know, stand next to someone you know, or someone you don't know, and take a selfie. And so we have this huge collection of beautiful, smiling people that we're going to post on the website and the Facebook page. It's really, really nice. And Jamil's invitation was to get to know, introduce yourself and get to know people who perhaps you haven't met. And it was almost like a speed dating. Yes. But people had so much, I would say, the room was just kind of elevated, filled with joy, with the thrill of having permission to meet new people. And the conversations, it was hard to reel, you know, reel it back in the evening. Yeah, Janot was our emcee, and Yahoo was very instrumental in getting a number of community members there who could translate into a number of Asian languages. So, and that just adds so much to hear that, so, and, so, we were very excited and unhoped that this will be a, something we do every year, because it's celebratory and such a positive thing.
It's not just the languages, it's what's the words that are being said are very powerful. I agree with that, I think it's the natural feel is an information on every, every, for every different groups, they're endorsed and they're the supporters. But I think the language things make it standing out. And we had broad participation, it was wonderful that there were a few children, people brought their children, and Jamil was very generous in engaging with, with the younger, the younger generation, as well as the older generations. And we also had participation of the town leadership, you know, after hours, after a long day, and a generous financial support from Village Bank. Yes. And their participation. Yes, yes, they sent five people, including the head of their contribution department came in and read. So, that was quite, and they did that last year too, so it was exciting, both years they participated, last year they, this was the first year they gave a donation, and they helped us, you know, pay for some things that, and, not only did they pay, they offered, they did a lot of copying for them, so, there's always a lot of paper to give to them. And there was a good showing from town leadership and school leadership also, which was really nice to see.
Great work. Thank you so much for that. Um, and any other comments, or shall we go ahead and vote on the funding that we need to allocate? It'd be nice to send a, just a brief thank you note on behalf of our committee to, um, our special guest, Jamil Adams, for his beautiful facilitation, and also to Village Bank for their loyalty and supporting our effort in community building. Who, Marianne, will you do that or you want? Yeah, um, I'll do it for, it'll be like from the, us, I'll draft something and, and we can sign it as a committee. That'd be great. So, I mean, I have sent a, uh, you know, email, but that's not the same, something official, thank you, Janot, is, is nice. Yeah. For them to be able to put in their files. Good idea. Um, let's, I guess let's take these two, uh, financial allocations separately. Let's just take two separate votes. The first is to approve a $200 stipend for our special guest, Jamil Adams. Um, would anybody so move? I so move. Thank you, Janot, so moved and Marianne seconded. Uh, are there any comments or can we go ahead and vote? Let's go ahead and vote. Okay. Uh, Heather? Yes. Yawu? Yes. Uh, Kevin? Yes. Janot? Yes. Marianne? Yes. Sophie? Yes. And me, Karen, yes. So unanimous to, um, approve the $200 stipend. And then we have a $200 reimbursement that Marianne and Asma will split, uh, for printing food and supplies that they laid out their personal money for. Um, would somebody move to, to, um, allocate $200 reimbursement to be divided between Marianne and Asma? I see. I move approval that we, uh, $200 reimbursement.
Beautiful. Thank you. Is there a second?
A second. Janot. Janot is seconding. Great. Uh, good. So let us take a vote. Heather? Yes. Yawu? Yes. Kevin? Yes. Janot? Yes. Marianne? Yes. Sophie? Yes. And Karen? Yes. So unanimous for both. Thank you very much, everybody. Um, the next item on our agenda, this would be, Yawu, the third year that we would be co-sponsoring Lunar New Year. Am I right about that?
Yeah, Wu? Oh, look, um, this is the annual, uh, Lunar New Year celebration pulled up, pulled out by the, uh, Weinan Chinese American Associations. Right. They haven't done this for many years. And then they also, their experience is really helped us a lot on that, the fourth two of the, uh, our, um, Multicultural Festivals. So they are looking for our continued co-sponsorship on the 2026, which will be held on, on, uh, February 7th. Right. And this would be the HRDEIC's third year of co-sponsoring, I think, right? Right. Okay, so Lunar New Year celebration with the Weyland Chinese American Association on February 7th, 2026, from 1 to 5 p.m. Any questions, comments?
It's always a great event. There's lots of wonderful activities. It's child-friendly, family-friendly, um, adult-friendly also. And, um, and, an afternoon full of wonderful sponsorship, just to clarify, is to help with publicity the day of. And outreach. Yeah. For a number of years, the Lunar New Year celebration, um, was largely attended, um, participated in, uh, the Asian American community in Weyland. And not entirely due to our help, but, um, I think we have certainly, as a committee, contributed to, um, welcoming the whole community to participate in Lunar New Year. Um, and to have this just wonderful opportunity to understand and share in a little bit of some traditions, um, that are so important to many, um, people in our community. And it's also something, um, I don't know if you remember how, how many years ago, but, uh, it was when Omar Ezi was still superintendent. Um, I think some of our committee members, um, students, um, actually approached the superintendent of schools about making the Lunar New Year a school holiday, um, just a reflection of, you know, how important this is for, um, many people in the Weyland community. Um, so, um, Yahoo, is there anything else that you need from us, um, beyond helping to publicize this program? For the time being, it's, uh, publicize, especially through the entire town. It was, like, with the select board or other, you know, with the comments, the library could, uh, I think library is already our co-sponsor. The more we can get together to support it, the better we'll be. Yeah, we'll all go is to have more and more, uh, people who celebrate the Lunar New Year's to join us, as well as for everyone come to enjoy. Good, and will it say? In January, we could ask to put it in the, um, town manager's newsletter. Right. Yeah. Um, yeah, well, will it say on the flyer, you know, something like all are welcome or something so that when it goes out, you know, people in town will understand it's open to everyone? Oh, yeah, it's open to everyone. It's always open to everyone. No, I'm just saying, like, if there's something on the flyer indicating, you know, open to everyone, then that will help people who see the flyer understand that that means that. Okay, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll make sure that that happens. Yeah. That's a good point. Uh, town manager's newsletter, good. Uh, town manager's newsletter, good. Okay. Um, um, so, Yahoo, I don't know when the flyer will be done because we, as soon as it's done, we can post it on the website. I think, you know, it's, it's not too. I'm sure it will be done by tomorrow. They are waiting for our final vote today. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you. Great. Are we ready to vote or are there any other questions or comments?
Sounds like we're ready to vote. Um, can someone move to, um, vote to co-sponsor the 2026 Lunar New Year celebration with the Whale and Chinese American Association? So moved. Heather?
Is there a second?
A second. Oh, someone else is good. We'll have Yahoo second. That's good. Thank you. Perfect. Okay. Uh, so we're going to vote Heather. Yes. Yahoo? Yes. Kevin? Juno? Yes. Marianne? Yes. Sophie? Yes. And Karen? Yes. So we are unanimously in agreement that we're going to happily co-sponsor Lunar New Year. Thanks everybody. That's great.
Um, next up, we're kind of early. It's a good thing you came early, Karen. Because next up is agenda item number seven, um, which is discussion and possible vote for us to sponsor a tour of the Museum of Fine Arts for Whalen community members focused on how curatorial choices include or exclude particular stories. And our guest tonight is Karen Crown, who is a Whalen resident and a docent at the Museum of Fine Arts, who approached us and said, hey, would you be interested in having a tour for Whalen folks? So please tell us about it. Well, it kind of came out of the, uh, Conversations for Change and that we were talking about this and standing around a group of us and what, somebody said, what can we do? And I, I said, well, what I do is that the museum, uh, kind of came from indivisible, the political groups and, uh, strategic non-cooperation. Well, my strategic non-cooperation is including IDEA, which is also known as DEIA, into my tours and to represent the museum in a little different way. Of course, it always depends upon the group, uh, that I have and you don't, you know, but it is there. It is the mission of the museum. The museum's mission is here all along, uh, so in, in, but it can be done in a different way also. It's not, um, it's not a art history lesson, it's not necessarily a usual tour for a community. We would look at things that, um, that connect, uh, connect, uh, the community and the, well, it's looking at the identity, the things people have made, um, that connect to all of us. So it could be something religious, you know, there could be something in the museum that has a special meaning and we could ask maybe somebody from that particular culture to, you know, tell us their experience of it so that we better understand. Uh, it's looking and saying what can we tell about identity and cultures from the things we have made and what connects us, this bringing worldviews together to connect us, um, in a way that we don't always see. We see something, you know, that represents something but we don't know what it means. And somebody could just say, you know, I mean, it would be better to have that than to me explain it, but, uh, you know, that might be part of it. Uh, and it's, we are, I mean, we are looking at who gets, you know, we are asking the question, who decides, um, who gets to be on museum walls? And we're actively engaged in that. We are even talking to one of the curators and, you know, a little trepidation with what's going on. Um, we can't forget that we are a private museum. So, uh, we don't get any federal money at all. So, at least, you know, for, at least for now, we are okay. It hasn't always been that way, even in, since I've been alive, but we're different. Uh, so, and we're also, there's also an exhibit that you could touch upon that's called Counter Histories, and that's going to be going on for the next few years. Um, and it changes, uh, they just cut down one of my favorite pieces, but it changes it, but it is, it is looking at history and then the counter history. You know, how this history has impacted a particular culture, whether in the, it's mostly in the United States in this way, but, you know, we're not, we don't want to make other cultures exotic or strange. Uh, we want to look at them from a different world view. Something that is more open, you know, that won't, uh, pigeonhole different. People bringing people together can open up their minds and make connections and create a world where all belong, or a community. And I can get, uh, about ten people into the museum for free. It is, um, I haven't, I've talked to somebody a little bit about it, but I haven't really investigated it. I can bring it up to the, uh, to the manager of, uh, learning and community engagement and see if there's anything they could do. But I can get at least ten people in. And, uh, you know, we want to bring in people who don't feel like, who look and go, oh, all this neoclassical, you know, outdoors and this isn't for me. But it is, it's for everybody. And we have something for everybody. Anybody have any questions? Uh, yeah. Um, so a tour group, how big is a tour group? Well, um, how many would you want in your tour, this, to do with this group? Um, sixteen. You know, somewhere around there. They, sometimes this type of group can work better a little smaller, because there can be a discussion. People can ask about it. People can ask about it. I mean, that can happen in any group, too, though. Um, and we want, we would, we have assisted listening devices. We can, you know, provide for more people to be able to hear in the group. Um, it is, as I said, we, we use, I mean, I couldn't include IDEA in all my tours. You know, whether it's looking at how things have changed, how colonialism and empire are, all the, all these pieces. You know, things like that. And I would gear it to a specific, uh, you know, if you have any input of what you want to see, I can do that, too. Do you include as part of your tours who, who owns the art and where it comes from? I'm thinking about, um, the theft of the Louvre, because we were talking about it in my French classes. And in French, a lot of the, some of the, some of the commentary was about who, who owned those jewels originally. And I'm wondering if that's part of the conversation at the MFA. It is. So we had the first, um, curator of providence, providence in the United States. And we are very careful. In fact, we just sent back a lot of things and they take every, every request seriously. Um, and, and, and those happened to be the Benin bronzes that they sent back. Um, and Simon Shama did Civilizations in 2015. Well, when Kenneth Clark did it in, uh, 1998, Civilizations included, it was all Western Europe, Assyria. He's a British historian and it was on the BBC. When Simon Shama did it in 2015, it was, um, the whole, it was the whole world, Civilizations. The one of the episodes started with, these are the Benin bronzes. They were rummaged and pillaged from, you know, it's like, okay, right, be really direct about it. So, um, you know, we have given those things back. And we do have someone, I mean, I don't know the problem, the providence is always available. It's available on the website. Uh, if there's any questions, they certainly address it. The, um, we might get, um, the library has, don't they have free tickets? Passes. Yes, there's always passes. Yes. So that might be possible too. And they're members too. Somebody will remember. Somebody will remember. Yeah. Yeah. If somebody were a member. And, you know, Karen and I had talked briefly, it's not something we'd probably do in the winter. Uh, not this winter, I don't know. Until the spring. Yeah. Yeah. But maybe in the spring. And it's, you know, it is, it's exciting for me to be able to do it. For your own community. For your own community that you live in. Right. Right. Yes. And I mean, you guys have done so much and it, I think it kind of connects with that. Yeah. And so I was wondering, um, do you guys think if, like, if we could find funding for a bus, for example, and everybody would go together, but I know your experience, Marianne, sometimes with buses for like going in for the MLK lunch, they provide a bus and then nobody from Island uses if they just drive in themselves. So I don't know. Oh yeah. If people would take the bus if we got one or would they drive it themselves? Well, what might help with this is just, it's, it's a very specific, you're going in to do the tour and then you expect to be going home versus the, uh, an event that is more open ended that people don't necessarily, um, and you have to pay for parking when you get there. So there's an advantage to having a bus, but a bus does add a lot of expense to it. And I don't know that we could find funding for it. It was just something I wanted to know. Are there the smaller, uh, the smaller buses through the school if we could partner with the schools somehow? Aren't there the, I don't know, is it boosters? You know, they have the smaller buses for team, for some of the smaller teams or something, or are they used to? I don't know. Well, I, I, I remember the COA used, used to have like a little. Yeah, that's true. They have a van. That's true. I think it holds like up to 12. The Council of Nature. Yes. Yeah. I guess we should. Hopefully the COA has a, and this type of events too, right? They have these, yeah. Should we kind of put target to a particular group or should we, uh, do it as a general one to all the women and citizens? Well, I think, wait. I think it is possible. You want to use this or something. Dr. Julie Secord, but then she'd have to find a volunteer. Because I think the bus, the COA bus is driven by a volunteer. Oh, it's not. It's not done. Yeah, I can't recall either. Well, we're not doing it right away, so we have time to kind of inquire about these. In other words, it's not being done by somebody who's paid. But I also don't know, you know, the COA has certain expense issues that are supposed to be for, um, a certain group of people that they, you know, so, but that would just mean that we need funding if we were going to rent their bus. I don't know what it would look like, but we would have to just ask because they have, you know, pockets where they get their funding from. So we'd have to make sure that we could use it, and it was convenient. But we've got a couple of choices here. So what Yangwu said, asked a good question, was, are we talking about targeting a particular group or trying to get a cross-section of people? I would, I would seem to think it would be a cross-section. Yes. As opposed to targeting into a specific group. Yeah. Well, there's always that. Why did you choose this group and not that group? Right. But also this is an opportunity. Well, that's why you want the cross-section. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And intergenerational. I mean, it's a nice opportunity, cross-cultural, intergenerational. And I think that is what it's meant to be, is cross-cultural. So what we can learn about someone else's culture, you know, maybe by something they choose to talk about, and certainly talk about different objects and the part they play in the culture, but people can really look at things and a lot of times they have a very special meaning for them. Hmm. So how long, how long? Um, my tours go an hour, but frequently they go an hour and a half. Well, I was wondering, just in terms of numbers, because 16 doesn't sound, I don't know what kind of turnout we would get, but if we got more turnout, could we do something like, it's a two hour experience, one hour, the first half of the group is with you, and the other half can explore, and then the other hour, the second half, like there could be some creative ways. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. So that it's smaller groups, but more people can attend. It doesn't just need to be a, um, I haven't actually talked to, and kind of run by a few people, but I haven't actually called, talked to, uh, Museum Learning and Community Engagement to see how, I've talked to, I'm not the manager of Learning and Community Engagement yet. Uh, I am part, I do access tours too, which is accessibility. And those tours are, you know, different groups have a bus, they come in, they all come in for free. Um, I don't know that they've done anything quite like, I mean, they have some, you know, these are, uh, they can have veterans groups come in. We've done people with disabilities, special needs, uh, all kinds of things. And, uh, a community like LaSalle, which is a place, uh, a retirement place, where people need to select something, uh, educational to do. So those people come in on bus also. So how that would fit in, I could investigate more, but, uh, and what we can do. But we have, you know, a lot of tours that do come in, uh, to the museum. Great. And a lot of them, you know, some of them have no guide at all. Is this an opportunity to bring a bus in and where would I park my bus? You know, they have a special place for that. So to Heather's clever idea, um, what I'm wondering. So if, let's say we got 32 people who are interested, um, would that mean like five get in for free from the first group and five get in for free from the second group? Because you've got a 10, 10 people free total? We could, we could reserve the library passes too. Yeah. How many are there? I don't know. I thought there were just a couple. You know, I get, you know, two or four. Yeah. Like a special request. Float this idea to them. Yes. Of course. And, you know, they used to give us, just hand them to us if we'd ask. And I don't know whether it, to be negotiated, to be, to be, to be, you know, you're being known right now. And I have a friend who also gets 10 passes, you know, 10 passes that could probably do it. I mean, certainly I've done that for other people too, you know. I'm trying to imagine the registration form. That's actually what, I'm like, oh my God, how do we do the registration form? We can figure it out. And a flyer. A flyer, yes. So we should have an idea about what we're shooting for because we have some things to develop, you know, like transportation and, you know, I guess we would just advertise like we advertise anything else. And you could, we also could put it, it could end up being in the park and the recreation brochure. I mean, it could be a recreation program. Oh, and do they have a bus or something that if it is? I don't know what it is. It's worth asking. Yeah. I mean, certainly because they, that goes to every household, that brochure. That's a good idea. And so we should at least ask. So is that a Geno thing? Who's the most connected to the rec department from the festival? Yeah. The head of recreation. Yeah. Would that be Geno? Like who would reach out to Catherine? That's what I'm saying. Would Geno reach out or you or? Yeah, I'd be happy to reach out to Catherine. I was also wondering, Karen, what you think about the way you talk about it as, you know, kind of build this special tour with you as multi-generational and multicultural. But what if, what if we talked with Julie Secord about, you know, co-sponsoring it with the Council on Aging? I think if we could have sponsored it, you know, as a, as an outing from Wayland. That would be a nicer ask for help figuring out transportation. They haven't done that many times before with different museums. We could have talked it in so many different ways, right? So there's, um, one, one agency within, uh, Wayland or multiple done. It's a general interest or all seniors or young people. So we needed to, to decide. I'm pretty sure that for each of those, we probably can find 15 people. Um, I did just look on the library website. There's only one pass at the library. So that's . Well, it looks like we have some work to do. We can't work out all these issues. Yeah. I mean, I would, I know the Council on Aging does take people in, um, physically bar and bloom. Um, but they don't necessarily, they don't do a, they don't do a private tour, which they offer. Um, they just take the bus in and park it and let the, you know, the participants go into the museum. And they would easily use their membership or pay for it. So I think we should think about the co-sponsors too. Because if the co-sponsor, if COA is the only co-sponsor, that's going to signal that this is for older people. So then we need to have a co-sponsor who is more representative of younger people also. And then Sophie, I was also thinking, would we, would, would students be welcome? Would students even consider going on a tour with a bunch of grownups? I don't know if that would have an impact on the timing with school. Yeah. Well, this would be a weekend. Students, students do their own tours. I mean, we have a, we have school room tours. Oh, so that would be some. And, uh, I don't, I don't know that much about their tours. I mean, I know, I know somebody had said to me, oh, my kids love the, you know, from Wayland. But I haven't heard anything lately about it, whether Wayland incorporates that into their curriculum. But I know, then boy, it's a long day. Yeah. Sophie, you don't happen to know whether the schools do an MFA tour, using a fine arts tour, do you? I have not ever heard of one, but. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Don't worry. No, that's fine. So. Yeah. Do you plan to have one tour or multiple tours? Or do you think that you, do you, it's possible to have multiple tour guides like you? I don't know how you called it and took off of the tours. That is a possibility too. I mean, there's another guy from Wayland. There's two other guys from Wayland. Oh, who? One of them is gone for a while. And the other is Irene Chang, who, you know, really kind of focuses on Asian art. But that's fun too. Yeah. That's cool. Maybe, um, we could see if, as part of their work around belonging and community, when you can, would, um, that's also a, something, feels like a different demographic. And it would be a nice chance for people to come together. Yeah. With Council on Aging. So for the cost, I wonder if we were only able to get 10 passes, could you just do the math? And it's a reduced cost for everybody. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's true. Well, you know, we haven't even asked the MFA. They might, they might think this idea is so great that it's going to become a total free for everybody. Right. So. One woman just lost her father. So that, you know, I couldn't really, it was in the holidays. So I had to get, I guess, um, wait. So what I wonder is, do we have one or two people on the HRDIC who would like to work with Karen to develop this and then, and bring it back, you know, in January or February? I'd be happy to. I would do that. Okay. Okay. I can do it. Great. Wonderful. Well, we, I can give you everybody's contact info. Yeah. Wonderful. And as a final comment, I have to say, I mean, one of the things that we were doing at the human rights day was try to think about the things that we could do as action steps. And you were at that other conversations were changed. So, so for, you know, the group is visiting, you know, we've had a couple of events where people were mixing and thinking about what they could do. And, and even what we just read where we say, you know, our task isn't to fix the entire world. That's men, the part of the world that we are in. Exactly. And here you are. Exactly. Thank you so much for that. So. Yeah. Thank you. It really, you know, it really would be my pleasure, you know, for my community. Thank you. I really, I mean, you know, I think it's important. Exactly. It's wonderful. So do we, should we vote to say, yes, we'd like to do this. I think we don't necessarily know who the, I mean. Right. Or do we, maybe do we wait until January and January, but we have more information. Sure. That's fine too. I think, and we are, I think clearly we're clearly in agreement. Yes. That this is something we would like to do. And then maybe we can take a more concrete vote in January. Yeah. If the three of you come back with something. Yeah. That's fabulous. Thank you. Yeah. You're welcome. It's exciting. Really my pleasure. And Marianne, thank you for tying it to the thing that we read earlier. That's, and to the human rights day. Like that's really beautiful. Yeah. Wonderful. You're welcome to stay and hang out. Yeah, I'll stay. Great. Thank you. It's nice to have guests, especially since we're missing how many people? One, two, three, four, we're missing five people. So it's thank you for filling in for us tonight. Beautiful. Okay. So the next item, item number eight on the agenda is discussion and possible vote to co-sponsor a four session community conversation series with the Wayland Public Schools called Conversations Not Confrontations led by Jameel Adams and to seek $3,430 to fund the series. Actually, maybe we don't want to vote on it quite this way in case we don't get funding from this organization, but from the Lydia Mariah child fund. Oh, and or other sources. That's how we worded it just in case. So this goes out of Heather and I mentioned this last at our last meeting when we were brainstorming about programming ideas, and it grows out of a conversation Heather and I had with Caroline Hahn, the director of diversity equity and belonging for the public schools. following the incident at the high school on October 30th, there was a lot of, you had a good word for it, describing the conversation on the Wayland community forum. Just the tone, the lack of respect that we wanted to talk about. How could we have more respectful conversations when we disagree or have differing opinions? And the idea would be sort of doing some skill building in Wayland for having difficult conversations without resorting to yelling at each other virtually or insulting. And, you know, to bring some humility into the conversations, which I think is, personally, is really missing. And so Caroline Hahn thought this was a good idea, and she connected with the superintendent and assistant superintendent, who also thought it was a good idea. And so we connected with Jamil Adams, who was the person at the Human Rights Day event. Jamil also helped create, actually, he was the guy who started the freedom teams in Massachusetts and helped Wayland develop our freedom team. So we thought he would just be a great person to, he's so kind and just a perfect person to lead this. And so you all should have received a draft. We've actually got a newer draft, but no, no, I think I sent you the newer draft also. So welcoming people's thoughts about that, suggestions, questions. But even if you only looked at the earlier draft, that's fine, too. I mean, we just filled it out a little bit. Yeah, it's not. It's not substantial. Content hasn't changed. Yeah. Questions, comments? Well, he mentioned it, actually, at the event, at the Human Rights event. I think it's great and it's important things to do. We certainly want to have the communications where the people really be able to know how people can get on each other. Hey, Yawu, would you be willing to move your camera so we can see your face? Okay. Thank you. Because I wasn't sure if you were talking to us or someone else just then. Would you mind repeating what you just said? I think this is a really great thing that people, when the people meet each other, talk, and then they will understand them more. I think just like we had a lot, the human rights, I mean, the human rights days. Yeah. Those kind of interactions, and here we can focus on the school issues, which we had so many problems. And it's really important for us to do something in this area. Yes, Kevin. Karen, I got a couple of questions. Sure. When is this fourth session? Yeah. When's it supposed to start? January, and I don't know whether we can achieve that or not because we don't have the funding yet. Well, I was going to say, can we table this until the table it? Because like you said, we don't know if we're going to get the funding. Yeah, I think it's important that we vote on it so that when we apply for the funding, we're applying with the full voice of this committee. Okay. All right. So, um, should I make a motion that we co-sponsor? Sure. Thank you. To co-sponsor the, um, four-session, um, conversation series with, conversations, conversations with, on the series. And just to correct, it's $3,430 just to make sure we get that. Sorry, love. Yeah. So, um, well, first of all, we, we do, um. Oh, yeah. Is there a second? Sorry. Is there a second? Yeah. Can we have? Yeah. Then we can still have comments. Wait a minute. We still have to second it. But someone needs to second it and then we can get more comments. I can't second it. No. Second. I'll second it. Okay. Yeah. Go ahead. Then you can comment. Um, so we have, um, Dr. Hayes's final, um, conversations for change. Yeah. We don't actually want to have this start before that conversation, which I think is the 14th of, um, January. And actually it's hard to imagine we'd pull this all together really to have that happen before that event. Cause we still have to advertise for it. So we really need to get people's attention. We don't even have a flyer yet. Nevermind the money or any of that. Well, yeah, it's ambitious. So, um, okay. The, um, well, I'm just saying we get those things in order, um, uh, then, uh, the, um, I just wanted to make sure we didn't try to be pushing ahead of Dr. Hayes's talk. If you'd like to finish that up. That's January 15th. Yeah. And this is January 13th. And the reason for that is that it's like the sec, uh, January or second Tuesday of each month for four months. I see. But we, um, we may or may not make it for the January 13th when the holiday's coming up. That's, that's what we aim for. Uh, my personal feeling is if we can't make January 13th, we start February 10th and we push it out through until May. Well, I guess I, oh. Let me ask you this, um, now that you've mentioned it. Can this conversations be conversations or four sessions conversations for January and January? Yes. Okay. So we're basically we're under no pressure to be ready for January. Well, I think, um, there was a sense, you know, of urgency around just the, especially the conversations on the Wayland community forum, which is our, um, social media page. It's a private social media. Private Wayland. Yeah. Which was avoid the adjectives, but it was really unpleasant following that incident of people casting judgment on other people's children, which I just think is so okay. Um, and we want to, you know, we want to get in there on the heels of it, but we have to be realistic about what we can do. So well, and I think we have to be, uh, take into consideration something that's already happening and we don't want to, we don't want to take away the support for that. I don't think it takes away the support. Is your concern fewer people would come because it's two nights in the same week? Yeah. Yeah. Um, in the winter, would we have the same audience? But, you know, I don't think, you know, the likelihood of that really happening, but the, um, the idea of we'd love to do something with the schools. I'm just actually, I'm quizzical because you're talking about, it was adults having these conversations and yet the school was involved. Can you, is there some conversation about that that I missed? They're doing their own thing with the kids. Like they're doing their stuff with the kids and that's not really our bailiwick, our, you know, so, so this is our way to collaborate with them. But for the adults in the community, parents, um, in particular, uh, but any, and all adults. Would you say they're doing something with the kids? They're doing something around, um, conversations, not confrontations? I don't think specifically that, but I, but I know they're doing a lot of work with the kids post incident. I know, but I, I, I don't think they're doing exactly that. We've also, yeah, we've heard through the superintendent. I think he mentioned, you know, in some of the public meetings comments that, I mean, where the schools could use our help is working with adults. You know, they have access to kids. They don't have really access to adults, um, or even families really. Well, that's great. Actually, I think that's a, that's a wonderful link and how wonderful to work with the schools in this way. Exactly. This is a blessing. Yes. This is a silver lining. Because they want to work with us. They want to work with us on it, so. Wonderful. This is a co-sponsor with the school. That means we work together with the school. Yes. It's not just our programs. Yes. It's not, they're not just doing promotion or whatnot. Just to actually make this work together. Yes. So we probably need to talk with them. Work with them to, when it's starting January or February, it will be a co-decision, is it? Correct. We, Heather and I have been working closely with Caroline Hahn, the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Belonging. The proposal you see is a joint effort. And all of it, the dates, everything about it is a joint effort. And in fact, on the version of the proposal I sent you, I misunderstood Caroline Hahn. Her name will be on the proposal. And we don't know if the Superintendent's name will be on it too. We're kind of waiting to hear back who's, whose names from the school should be on it. But their names will be on it too. It'll be totally a joint submission. And yes, they will be able to help publicize it as well. It might actually be able to be in, not just the fall school's calendar, but each school's calendar. Yeah, that's true. Great. So is, well, we already passed that we were in. We haven't voted. We haven't voted yet. Yes. Are there any other comments or questions before we vote? All right. Well, let's, let's vote to do the thing that Kevin said. I'm not going to repeat it. I don't vote you. Thank you. You want to leave the motion? Oh, sure. Oh, sure. Thanks. Thanks a lot. Yes. Okay. Great. Go ahead. I make a motion that we, um, that we co-spon- Co- Human Rights, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. Co-sponsor. Four-Session Committee. Conversations. Series. Public Schools, Conversations.com. Led by Janelle Inam. Yeah. Mariah. Other sources. Yes. Thank you. All right. Let's vote then. Heather. Yes. Raul. Yeah. Kevin. Yes. Geno. Yes. Marianne. Yes. Sophie. Yes. And Karen. Yes. I'm excited to co-sponsor this, which is great. It positions us well to go in with this proposal. So thank you, everybody. And that actually is a nice segue into the next topic, which is a little more open-ended than than the other topics. than the other topics. than the other topics. So last time, November 18th. So- Is this on the programming? Is this number nine we're talking about? Sorry. Yes. Number nine, continued discussion and possible vote on 2026 programming ideas. Okay. So we just voted on one, actually. So thank you for that. And that is the first one that appears on this next document, which is a summary of programming ideas that we brainstormed at our November 18th meeting. And- And we already added a new one. We talked about- The MFA. The MFA. Yeah. So what category does that go under? Let's just think about that. I don't know if it goes under any of these bridging differences, maybe. How about that? Sure. We'll add it to the first topic. Thank you. Wonderful. So these are categorized. You could categorize them many different ways. This is the topics I put there, but they could be something different. And Heather looked this over as well. This- This grows out of- Last time we talked about, like, what can we do following the incident? But also- But it isn't only about the incident. It's just, you know, in light of all the things happening in our world and happening in Wayland. What can we do to make this place better? Make this place a place where everybody feels they belong. That is our ultimate goal. So the first category of stuff we brainstormed was bridging differences. And we talked about the conversations, not confrontation series, which we just decided to go ahead with. Somebody said- Oh, I know. Anyway, it doesn't matter. But suggested, like, a motivational speaker or a panel with breakout rooms. But what's interesting about that, that's what Wayland Khan is going to be doing. So we have been talking with Wayland Khan to try to figure out if our programs can overlap or we can work together. And our series of conversations kind of lead up to and then follow a speaker that they're planning, they're working on bringing. But I think that's still in progress. They don't have a date yet. But end of March is what they're leaning toward. And it's somebody, a kind of a nationally known speaker who talks about communicating across differences. And he's very young and charismatic. And maybe they're, I don't know if they're going to do breakout groups with that. But, so yeah. So we've got that going too. Not we, but in the town. And then the MFA, we're going to add that to our first category of bridging differences. And then the second category we talked about, I don't know if you're welcome to summarize these or I can. Go for it, Mike. Oh, computer. Second category was fostering solidarity and reducing conflict among underrepresented groups. In other words, these days there's so much division among groups that would be much better off in solidarity with one another and not fighting one another or competing for scarce resources. And so this one is how can we get groups that are, whatever you want to call it, underrepresented minority groups. There's a lot of different ways to say it. And some of these words have resonance that people don't like. So whatever word you want to choose. How do we get people feeling a sense of solidarity rather than competition among one another? And someone suggested like a speed dating game. Actually, Janot, I don't, this is the one you talked about, to encourage people to talk with one another. And then you mentioned a world cafe model. Do we want to unpack those two a little bit? Thank you, Maryam. Do we want to unpack generally? Yeah. So the speed dating and the world cafe are, I mean, they're, they're related but complimentary. They're just interactive methods. The nice thing about the speed dating is that you can do it for a very limited amount of time. You can give people five to seven minutes and it gets everybody standing up and moving around. So it elevates energy and it feels like a game. There's a time pressure. So actually heart rates go up and people are seeking to connect with each other. So it's a great way to set the stage to then go into more contemplative, reflective and deeper small group discussions, you know, in a, in more of a world cafe method. But you know, in world cafe, I mean, there, there are different degrees of structure. You need some structure so that it's not just completely open ended because that wastes time. But you can also give the group prompts so that they co-identify what one or two things that they really want to talk about. And I think the, you know, the facilitation is important so that people feel that there is structure, but also feel that everyone has a chance to express themselves. And the reason that you want people to feel like there's some structure is that that makes, it makes people feel secure. They, they, you know, they feel that, Oh, we're all operating under common ground rules. This is what they are. And this space is maybe, you know, maybe safe. But what we're really striving for is for people to feel brave. So let me pause and ask a question. Cause we have, I don't even know how many more, 20 more bullets here. This year we now have the, hopefully the conversations, not confrontations and the MFA. Tour coming up in the kind of winter, spring timeframe. And then it's summer. So do we want to keep brainstorming these to think about what we could do in the fall? Because we do have a long list of possibilities. We're not, when I'm listening to you talk, I'm thinking we, I don't know how we would squeeze in one more thing this year. Do you, in 20, in the first part of the first part of the academic year. So I just would love some help thinking that through. I don't see it. Well, in another event, you know, in the fall, we have to the festival. So now I'm thinking, Oh, we have all these great ideas. Oh, actually, practically speaking. Well, are there any of them, we had also talked about, are there any other ones that we thought maybe community members would like to help organize it wouldn't necessarily be run by us. You could connect with people. What was the working together across differences on specific tasks, the representative working group. Wasn't there a community member who had that idea? Yes. Correct. Correct. Yes. So I'm wondering if there's like, if we could plant that, be a seed planter instead of a farmer. We can help grow some of them, but we can plant seeds that other folks might help us pick up. Because as a small group, we can't, we can't do everything. And I would suggest that, I mean, you know, 11,000 people live in town. 11,000 people are going to come to every single event here, but that it's okay if we're end up attracting, even reaching out to like the garden book to do the cooking class or whatever. Yes, that it's okay because you might get a larger concentration of people from a certain group. And then, you know, just like with any kind of diversity work, it's always better when more people are involved and learn. And then they, they continue on their journey of learning together through their mutual experiences. So, you know, because yeah, this is a huge list and everybody's not going to go to everything. And my experience in the past and in diversity events that, you know, because we've had a number of diversity groups over the 30 years I've lived here. You know, you don't want to get to the point where only the organizers are there. And so we want to engage more people and organizations in this effort. And so even though not everyone's going, stuff is happening. And there's that conversation bubbling up all in pockets everywhere. Not siloed, but you know, the room only holds so many people. And could some of these ideas be piggybacked? Like Jenna, when you were speaking, I was thinking, that is so cool. And could it be piggybacked on another event that's already happening in town? But I, I don't know what that might be. The festival. We'll have that in a tent. It'll be the dating, you know, that could be a time. Could we also connect? Could this be an opportunity to connect with folks on the town, in the town? Like the community center of having that takes some ownership to reach out and bring in, just bring in a working group. Can we, could they set up a meeting with a diverse group of people to say, here are some ideas. We're wondering about using this space because I think we talked last time that the space is set up to be used by, Janelle, what percent did you say? Or somebody told us what percent of the time that was for community space. But actually, you know, there isn't, we just learned there isn't really a group or an organization that is planning the community center side. You know, COA is focused on, you know, their activities and their use of that building. But there's kind of a move of foot to try to create an entity to do programming and planning for the community center side. Exactly. And that's what this thing is under working together across differences on specific tasks. That's what that first bullet is. And is there a point person that maybe, you know, we could have a meeting. We could invite them to one of our meetings to have a conversation about, about some of the ideas. Or I don't know what, I haven't helped this yet. There was someone who mentioned it. I have some experience. Greenland Chinese American Association just talked with, working with the COA. Got it like two hours every other week to get together, provide this program for the seniors. So I, I, we stopped, stopped. Actually, there's a meeting right after this. So I joined them to talk about what we are going to do. So we may want to think about, we make it a two hours. A week, a month, or two, every other week. So that we can do something. We can think about what we can do to promote our needs. And would that be, I'm sorry, I will. Would that be something that, or is that just to use this space? Or would it be open to the community? The Chinese WCA will run the program. Okay. We'll suggest, probably like a Tai Chi class, or some kind of game class, something like that. And then we can... For the whole community? Or with the COA? They do it as part of the COA. But we can do it as part of the community. Because that could be a model that... Community service. That, that can be a model for us. Maybe we can offer some kind of videos, courses, or just discussions. We'll watch a video. And then we discuss the content, or the video, or different topics. Either understand others. Because the way, especially America here, we don't understand the rest of the world. When we say World Series, we're talking about North America. Okay? Right? So we really have that... I think, how do we open that view? How do you know how the people are living on the other side of the world? Is that really what we're thinking? Okay? We could... That could be a topic. And we can... Is it organized the tours? Or... Organized... Or... Um... The videos... Uh... Discussions. And all kinds of things. So even... Even foreign language conversation. You know... Yeah. For example, I mean, there may be people who are, you know, studying... Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Cantonese. I don't know. Who might like to join a conversation group to get practice. That's true, too. Exactly. You would be surprised. And maybe... Read some cultural... You know, you have some little tiny homework for the meetings. I used to go to a German language group at Weston Community Center. Oh, that's great. Well, and it makes me wonder, too, if... If we could get something like that going, if we could also partner with... Um... Park and Rec. So it's in the brochure as... As activities using that space more and more. And... And the more... If we could reach out to different groups in town to offer things that are... related to a specific culture or something that would... For learning, like you're talking about. Or languages or whatever it is. I mean, it could be like Spanish music. You know, learning songs. Salsa dancing. Well, I think... Janelle, I think the idea that was presented to us was that someone, whoever was organizing this, would reach out to these different communities within Wayland and find out what their needs are and what, you know, what they would like. But I don't know that we have an organizer for that effort. Yeah. We don't... We don't as yet. Although... We know we've had conversations with somebody who's highlighted this. Yes. But who... I don't think who's necessarily wanting to lead that effort. I don't think. But what I wonder, when you talk with Catherine, do you think the Rec Department would be interested in actually initiating something like that to reach out to different parts of the community with regard to the use of the community center? Or is that outside their... I know they have a lot on their plate. They're pretty busy. But I can certainly ask. Because that could be a place to start. We probably could use them to support us. They definitely have a lot of resources. I think like this Multicultural and this Wayland Festival. They have so much resources. But we probably don't want to come out with ideas that meet our goal. They will be the ones who help us in certain things. For example, they can help us to do the sign-up. To do this kind of work. Or we could invite them to be part of this planning. It's almost like a Multicultural Festival. We started. We expanded. We started with some more specific ideas of what we can do. Which is more really can reach or go. Then we can expand that to include different people. They really have the attendance on that. And make it more permanent or more ongoing things. I wonder if the council... I mean, the Park and Rec even would put into their brochure or some sort of call or even Michael McCall in the town email thing. Some sort of call for interested in sharing dance, music, culture, food, something. Reach out and to let people know that the Council on Aging I mean, the Council on Aging slash new community center is a space that people could use. Is there some way to create kind of a buzz around that and actively reach out. And see if anybody would like to lead any programs. Even if it's... To your point, Yaowoo. Even if it's just a one two-hour session that somebody volunteers to do. And little by little it picks up. And all of a sudden maybe once a week there's some different type of session run by different community members. And maybe one's a foreign film. Like to... I don't know. There's one. So all the thousands of people who are watching this. If anybody's interested, reach out to us. Well, we haven't asked... We haven't actually asked people. I mean, actually the recreation brochure has, you know, a lot of those programs are, you know, someone people pay for, you know, and people come to the town. I don't know how much, and I don't know if you know, but how much recreation says, oh, we want a art class. Or we want a this. You know, I think it's kind of a collaborative. Because I think last time I tried to do something, it was, you know, like, you know, how it's paid for. And the person who comes in. So how that is all arranged. But to actually ask, it's kind of like the festival. You're asking people to participate, and how would they like to participate. And we try to fit... We try to create some superstructure for them to kind of key in on as their afternoon of conversation. Or... I wanted to bring up one other topic, though. You know, and it's kind of... I don't know. It just occurred to me. I want to... You know, one of our charges is that we are advisory to the select board. And, you know, it's important to work out, reach out to the community. But I don't want to forget that voice that we bring to them, both either in their training, because they're making decisions that, you know, it's... You know, all of our leaders, it always helps to have some background in the work that... The kind of things that we talk about. And we know there's a lot of... It takes a lot of time for all of the people who work on our boards. And it's hard to carve out the time to educate people about this. But we should think about that in our effort to reach out to the community. We also want to help advise our leaders. So... Anyhow. That's just something to put in the back. Well, which is the other piece that's not even in here. You're right. That that is our... One of our primary charges. And we have the equity assessment that's not on the agenda tonight. But that actually should be another... It's a key piece of ongoing work that we're trying to do. That we need to keep front and center. And that is directly advising them. I mean, I wonder if it wouldn't be a good suggestion from us to ask the select board to consider establishing some sort of a part-time position for coordinating community center activities. And I think that's kind of the hurdle that we're dancing around. We, you know, rec can manage some pieces, COA can manage some pieces, but there isn't really... There's no one who is in charge of community center programming. And it's hard to sync up with the recommendations coming out of the community engagement report. Unless there's someone who has this kind of, you know, focus of how to connect the dots. I would think there, you know, is there some sort of structure that can be set up for, like, signing up for spaces there? Like sort of the town pool when you sign up for a swim lane. You know, but you could sign up for a space and what you're doing there. There are a lot of structures that could be put in place that would help. But I think you're right. Having someone oversee that would be important. I think it's because COA has its own structure. So we don't want a parallel structure. We want one that's integrated. Yeah. I think I have some experience on this. The opponent counts. Okay. If we have someone to responsible for all the programs for the community center, then the good part is we may be able to fill a lot of things. And the drawback is the way our resource, the people's interest that may be, how do we, with less creativity, we have less creativity because this organization become the one to come out, all the ideas. And I'm involved with the Greater Boston Chinese Cultural Association, which we do have a community center. And most of the programs we are running is open. Whoever wants to run the program, they can rent a space from us or sign up. We have to charge because we have to maintain it. So now we have 20-some programs every week, different interests with different peoples. And there's always coming new ideas. We want this kind of classes or that kind of activities. So how do we balance these kind of creativities? Or to have a centralized people, think about, oh, we have to have the square dance. We have to have that. I think we, with time being, I actually am in favor of having this space available. We have a rule that says that it's a way of encouraging the time people to use that space for the service, for all kinds of interesting groups. I think we may want to start with that. Yeah. And the space does have a cost. Yeah. It's be helpful to have that information, Michael or whoever has it. I'd be curious to know what percent of the time the space is used and there are rooms available. But also, what are the protocols around it? Are there expenses? Who can use it? All those kinds of things would be helpful to know. And, you know, we've talked about the town green. I mean, the town center and the town green. And that's one of the reasons they were so excited that the festival was going to be there. Because this is a space that they would like to see used. You know, we haven't had anything necessarily. It's not in the most convenient spot. But, you know, it is there. Kind of like the Natick town commons area. They have a Natick common cultural center committee that oversees the use of that common area in Natick. And so, I don't think we're there yet. But it's, you know, certainly something to think about. But that space is there. And how that it could be used to serve our purposes. So, anyhow, just another. This is good. What I think is, we should talk to Michael about it. And, Janot, if you check with the rec department. And then probably also checking with the Council on Aging itself. To just, with, what's her name? Julie. Julie. Julie, to find out, like, what are the procedures. And, you know, the mechanics of it. I could call Julie and find out. Another area. Okay. I have another different topic. Okay. Related to what? To what? Yeah. Yeah. So, we started a multicultural festival. Okay. Only organizations, which we really say, actively involved, other than us, is the Vietnam Chinese American Association. But now we, from the Celtic, from the Egyptian groups, seems they are active. And then we do have the Jewish group. We have the Islamic group. And then we have other groups. So, I think, somehow, we may want to make those groups more interact, more together. Maybe we have the chance to meet with all of them once every few months. And it's come up some idea of what we can do. And if they can support all the poor ones, we are thinking about how to get them involved. I think the more we do, the more we can get the different groups. I even hope that some groups with smaller numbers, like Koreans, Indians, and they haven't reached to that stage, but they do have a good number of people here. Yeah, that's really, that's a way to network, you know, so that we're not creating all these things. We're supporting the community as they create things and have been in contact like that. It would be interesting to create that. I mean, these are events, but to create, pull together these groups so that, just like, you know, when we get together with the human rights state organizations, there's so many ideas. It's actually hard to be there because I just get more ideas and I am already overwhelmed with ideas. But, you know, in that space, I mean, here's, we're building community and that, it's interesting how we might be able to get that instead of just doing all ourselves, that we're going to co-sponsor, well, instead we're just sitting there together and we're hearing about, and you know, we'll, it's not that we don't want to co-sponsor, it's just that, you know, someone else is going to do it and we're just, you know, we're just going to attend. Well, yes, and Yahoo, I think, is making the point that even if there were miraculously a half-time staff person at the town who could take on this job that we think is so important, that the advantage of us staying involved in some way is that it puts us in connection with different groups and that's really important for us and for our work. So, I think that's a great point. But it would be nice if there were miraculously a half-time staff member whose job it was to focus on this. It seems like a no-brainer. Well, it's a no-brainer, but there's no money. There's no money. There's a hiring freeze. Yeah. Yeah. But we'll take a multi-prone approach and see what we can do. Yeah, and if we can get more ideas about the structure and what's required and can get some publicity out there and we have more knowledge, we can get word out to groups about the space exists, here's what you do to be able to use it and help publicize. Yeah. You know, the Wayland Garden Club uses St. Anne of the Fields now. And they wanted to, I mean, there are different times where we've used, you know, this building. And they investigated the community center and couldn't, and I don't even remember why I looked it up. Well, because they chart, they probably said there was a fee for you to use it. But people always had a fee. I mean, it wasn't, we did Trinitarian for a while. And they had a fee, you know, different places we weren't. I don't, I don't remember enough of it right now to speak to it, but they looked into it. Let's, let's explore it. It feels like this is one that we're really interested in. Which one is that? The, the, under working together across differences on specific tasks. It's the first bullet and that's what we're really talking about here. And all these others can sit here and wait until we're ready to address them some other time. But I feel like we've got some energy around this, this one item around the community center. And it's very timely. And maybe, Jano, someday we can get all these different groups at the community center and do the speed dating thing. So let's just keep all of this in mind. I did have one question just in terms of that title. The Fostering Solidarity, the second title. Yeah. Is that supposed to only be amongst underrepresented or historically marginalized groups? Or is that within the community? It doesn't have to be. Oh, okay. Because I didn't know how, like where the commas were. Yeah, exactly. Some of, yeah, exactly. Some of these, these were placeholder titles to figure out how to group some of these, but no, it's not wedded to that. Well, I guess I want to suggest that since it's 7.40. And so is there anything else that anybody sees on this list that you feel like we ought to address tonight or should, can we come back to it? No, Kevin. No, Kevin. We live festival. We live festival. We live festival. That's not on our agenda. Okay. I think we need to think about who will be, other than Chanel, who will be continuing representing us at the Weyland Festival. I can tell, but I don't have the energy that I had before to do that much. So we probably looking for someone more, more involved. And I will be just on, I still can attend to some meetings, but. Support us. Yeah. Yeah. I think the structure that we're looking at, that we've, that we've just talked about in our first kind of forward looking meeting for next fall. Is that we're looking for kind of champions of different task areas. So I would just say it really should go in our announcements section of this meeting. Yeah. Can we hold off on that since it's not quite on our, on this part of the agenda? Yeah. Why don't, why don't we just hold it for that? Yeah. Okay. Put it on, maybe put it on the agenda for. Sure. For sure. For sure. Um, so the, the next item on the agenda is because we didn't quite, I feel like we didn't quite cover this, the know your rights flyer. Um, I know. I mean, we have the best of intentions, but we don't exactly really have a workable plan for getting those flyers and getting people to, to volunteer to put them up. Well, we all volunteered to ask in a couple of places, but where do we get the flyers? Well, yes. Um, maybe we, so that's why I put it on the agenda again, just like, um, would you like me to get some copies made, Marianne? Would that be helpful? Of the? Of the know your rights flyer. Well, and with the QR code. With the QR code. With both, actually, because you know, I, I know we have one flyer that really has a QR code. That's the one. You know, people need to see what the items are. But they will when they use the QR code. I suppose. Yeah, but for some people that don't know how to use the QR code, IPY is important for it. Okay. So, we could make copies of both. I mean, you could do it back to back. Um, because obviously you need the links and that only comes from the QR code. Um, so you're saying you want, on the back of the piece, on the back of the page that has the QR code, you would put the material that a person would see if they used the QR code. Correct. The Google docket. Correct. That would be a wise improvement. Okay. Right. I hate to say it. I know how to use a QR code. Thank you for acknowledging that. You know what? We don't always like to admit those things. So, I appreciate your honesty. Thank you. Um, okay. So, what, how, 25? Yeah, the hard, the hard if it's on the back. If you're putting them. Well, then I guess the per, the, the, when you take it to a sample. When you take it to a store, then you say to someone you can post it either way, whatever suits you. Well, I'll be honest, most, well, my experience with posting was not very successful. That people aren't going to want to post things. People don't want to post things. That's, that's what I'm concerned about. There are, I know the stores that have a, something to post things on, but that, like when I went through, um, the town center. Yeah. No one wanted, you know, no one wants anything in their windows. So, having said that, I mean, you know, that was just my experience that, that year. So, um. Oh, and that wasn't even this flyer. That was something else. Right. And I don't, well, it was, it was about the, um, festival. And, um, I don't even know if they have, they may have rules. Yeah. About what you can post. In, in the center about what can be posted. No one said that though to me. No one said that, well, I can't post that. So, um. But it's also all going to change because there are new owners and the new owners are very interested in changing the appeal of the town center. Well, that doesn't. Yes. But whether this would be more appealing, who knows. Um, but yeah. Yeah. I, I think they're going to be less restrictive, but they also are interested in, um, you know, putting us influence the banners and changing those banners over time. Oh. The opportunities that we can get into. Well, maybe we could ask as a start if we can put them in like the town buildings, public buildings, as a start. Certainly here. Yeah. Here. And the COA. Both of them. At the library. And I guess I would, that would be a start at least so we're doing something. Right. Um, you know, is there a way to, um, just attempt people who don't really know what know your rights means because know your rights is, is kind of a, it means something. What? Certain, certain groups who need to know their rights, but it doesn't necessarily resonate with other people who may not know what those words really mean. Right. But it could, it could mean anything to me. Right. Which is why it's good to have the other side there. Or, or do we put, uh, like just bullets underneath of what the categories are on the other sides. Right. There are questions about this, this, this, and this. Like, and that way it doesn't have to be, it could just be those, what, four categories or something. Because you still need the links. And actually, that's a whole thing too, because the ACLU website has every category under the sun. And then when we put some additional categories, it's not everything. Yeah. It's not everything that you'll see if you actually go to that website. Do you guys know about the MIRA Coalition flyer? Yes. Okay. And that's immigration, but we have disability rights, immigration, we have, um, domestic violence. Oh, this is across the board. Okay. We have a bunch of categories. And then the ACLU has, you know, you name it. There's a lot of categories. So we didn't name all those categories. But we gave the link. I can show you later. Okay. I didn't realize it was so generalized. Yes. Well, which is, which is exactly to your point. When we say, no, you're right. Yeah. I hear, no, you're right. Especially now we all see you're happening. Many of us think of MIRA at the moment. Yes. And we also have talked about broadening it so that it could reach multiple people. And we started with that. That's how we started. And then it grew into something else. So. But I think we've thought of it more, you know, as an online resource and this issue of, you know, posting flyers. Um, I mean, you know, we could ask, you know, restaurants, could we put it up in your restrooms or whatever? Yeah. Um, you know, I'm wondering in Framingham, they made these little tiny business card, business card size things that they hand out. And actually like I have one, it has the same thing in Portuguese on the back and the same thing. And the Chinese language is on the back. And I think, you know, for cops and businesses, they may be more amenable to having, you know, a little stack of business size. No, you're right. That could be the cash register, you know, on a counter, but we should, I think we should do a little bit of, um, market research. We should, we should ask, you know, some of the, you know, town center businesses, some of the constituent center businesses, how they would feel about having that information and what format might be most welcome. Right. Well, and how much information, because those cards are specific, like from Mira. Right. I just feel like with everything we have going on, we don't have the horsepower to, we don't have the manpower. Right. We don't to, to do this. So who does Mira, how, how well has that worked out for Mira? Mira? Mira. M-I-R-A. That they have, business has been open to putting, having them? I'm not sure. I don't know. I assume so. I assume, I believe in downtown framing on what's happening. So that's the thing in communities. In the library, the public library in the bathrooms. Yeah. Um, have some. So I think it depends where you are. Can we distribute the flyer to every household, every mailbox? Is that a- Is that a- It's a big expense to do a public mailing. Is it very expensive? Yeah. We don't have a budget. How about if we, we talk, you know, to some weekly supermarket ads? Can we ask them to ask a favor to insert into their distribution? And we could ask, you know, the town sent out a flyer, like with a, with our real estate tax bills, there's always a little flyer and information in there. That's a great idea. Insert. They go out anyway. And it's just a QR code if they could fit on that little flyer somewhere. All right. So we have a couple ideas that, um, for physical places, the town building, the COA, the library. Um, and then other things are the real estate flyer and even the Weyland post. Yeah. And stop and shop. Stop and shop. Outside of Walden. Outside of Walden. It's really pretty rough. All right. Well, let's, let's start with getting some, I, I can take a step and then, and, uh, figure out what we can do with the town and what they're willing to, to do. Um, I will get some copies made Marianne and I'll, could we put it in, um, the town newsletter that goes out once a month as our human rights thing, just with the link. Uh, we will, uh, I'm going to, I'm going to ask Jalen what, what we can do. Is it on our website? All the information, all the information about knowing about rights. Can I get those information from our website? Yes. Yes. Yes. That's where the QR code takes people. We have the QR code for it. Yeah. It's on the flyer and that takes people to the website. Okay. That's already done. That's great. Yes. It takes them directly to the page, not just our website. Right. All right. We'll, we'll, we'll keep this alive. I'm going to put it on next, next month's agenda. I, I commit to trying to get something done between now and next month on this. Uh, I want it. The next thing is item number 11. I, so every year, this is about the, our schedule for meeting in 2026. So every year we end up having like tonight, we are missing five people because tonight happens to be school concerts. And so our parents of school age children can't be here because their kids all have concerts. But what we do know is our February, uh, I mean, our February and April meetings do fall during school vacation week. Um, and so I'm open to suggestion. I mean, if you rejigger it, then what happens is you end up with a couple of meetings three weeks apart because you have to move it either forward or backward. And then it's too close to the, or you have too close or you, or the other thing is, do we move it to another day? Well, we now have a different configuration of people, but in the beginning when we tried to find a different day, Tuesday was the one day that seemed to, to work for everyone. Now we could switch it from the third Tuesday, but even, yes, to get it out of the school vacation weeks, we could try to switch from, from third Tuesday. Does that matter that much? Huh? Does that matter that much? I don't know. It just depends how many people. The young people, you know, the younger people with school age children will, it'll be like tonight. And also for our, for our student members, it's really not fair. And we want our students to be able to participate. Yep. Like January is a long month. So if we meet on the, or we meet on the third. We normally meet the third Tuesday. One, two, three, maybe three weeks if we met February 10th. I mean, we could just switch those or we could try for, um, it's really February and then April. February 10th is Jamil's program though, actually. Or, or can we just keep the dates and see who's available because not everybody goes away during, not everyone goes away on vacation during school vacation week. So. I know it's always hard to find dates that work for everybody. Yeah. I kind of feel like we have to keep them. And if we have a problem for them, then we'll deal with that. Case by case basis. Case by case. Cause if we start trying to change it, I think we're going to have a ripple effect of unintended. Unless we just change February and April. Yeah. I think we should change February and April. So February 10th is supposed to be Jamil's program. So. So the 24th. So it would have to be the, yeah, the 24th. And then when is the next one? March 17th. Well then March 17th. That works. And then one, two. I mean, we could do April. We could do April 14th instead of the 21st. April 24th and April 18th. That can't be a Tuesday. No, April 14th. Oh. April 14th is another Jamil program. Oh, that's right. We have to do April 28th. And then we, you know, then we're three weeks apart, which is sort of a pain. I, I'm very, I think we should just see if someone's here. If we have enough. Or. I agree. Move them all to the, from the third Tuesday to the fourth Tuesday of the month. You know, either move them all. You're going to run into Thanksgiving. I know. There'll be something. There'll be something. Like December would have been the holiday week. And November. Those would both be. Yeah. Yeah. So there's no, there's no perfect thing. So, all right. So let's keep it. We'll, we'll, we'll do our best. Are you saying keep it the third? Keep it the third Tuesday. Okay. And when the time gets closer, if we want to propose something else. Oh, I see a hand up. That's right. Hello. Hello. Sorry. I've been very quiet all night listening. That's what I'm here for. Okay. Did you want to say something now? Well, I was just going to say that I, one, wanted to thank you all for allowing us, the three of us, I think are still here. Uh, I see Matt is, I don't see where Dana is, but I'm sure he may be around. Uh, at any rate, uh, I want to thank you for allowing us to be here. And it's so interesting to see that some of the complications you may seem to be having are very similar to ours. It's not unusual. Uh, uh, sometimes then you, you, I was so grateful to hear you say that we don't have a budget. I'm sorry. You don't have a budget, but neither do I. We don't need that. Yeah. So, uh, I guess that correct. That wipes out the question. Who on your panel is, is, is, is a paid member. I guess that's not there. So, yeah. And, and that, that goes to the question of getting people involved and getting them to come faithfully to meetings, et cetera. Uh, those are problems we're facing in Framingham as, as well. Uh, but I, I applaud the efforts that you have so many items on the agenda, uh, that cover a lot of areas and a lot of bases and some you voted on and some you've hold off and you're postponing for other, for other times to get it through with it. But it's just amazing to me that, uh, the similarities are there. And, and, uh, I know you, you talked about your library and, and I, I, I know your library. I've been there. I've been there. I've been, you know, I can say that I've at least, uh, went through the door and spent some time there, but, uh, that, uh, our library is incredible with what it does and it's doing a lot of things, uh, that are posted in their, in their, in their flyer. And we have in Framingham, we have a news letter that comes out once a week from the city of Framingham and it tells something about everything. It talks about the veterans. It talks about, uh, all the different kinds of events that are going on. It's really a great one. And we've not utilized it well enough. We should be putting more items on there that are, uh, interest of us, you know, for us. And, uh, we have put on panels, you know, to, to invite people to come and, uh, and we've had a similar problem where we wanted to have, uh, flyers maybe put out and around again. It's a financial issue and, uh, and a language issue. Most of them were usually used for the main, main languages that we have. That is English, Spanish, and Portuguese. Uh, so it's, it's one of those things. But again, I don't want to take up your time. I know it's eight o'clock and I wanted to say thank you again for allowing us to be here. And, uh, we may want to come back if it's okay with you. And I promise I won't talk as long as I did tonight. Yeah. So anyway, so thank you again, you know, appreciate it. You know, and we're on zoom too, but ours are on the same time. Meeting nights is this though. We meet the second Thursday of every month. So, but, uh, you're all welcome to come and join us. Thank you. And you're all welcome to attend the mass human rights coalition meetings. I think I emailed you about that where that Marianne was referring to before where people from human rights committees and commissions from around the state, mostly Eastern Mass, but from around the state get together. Thanks for reminding me. Yeah. It's like the, I don't know. It's the first Friday. The first Friday. Yeah. It always comes up like, oh no. 9 a.m. Yeah. I know it's early. When is that perfect time? For the night, it's early, too early for the night owls, but it's a good time for other people. Um, I have one little announcement. Yes. Let's do announcements. Go ahead. So, um, I just wanted to share that, um, we've had our preliminary festival planning meeting, and we are looking for captains and also supporters for each of the major, um, Chris used the term AAA, which is attractions, amenities, or aspects of the festival. Um, so the list includes touch a truck, the parade, diversity and inclusion, which is outreach, tent pavilion, marketing, promotion, and communications, fundraising, food trucks and restaurants, abutters, and the high school team. Um, and there may be additional, um, themes that we're looking for captains for. But if you're interested in any of those areas, um, please get in touch with them. Wow. Thank you. Good luck. Uh huh. Uh huh. And, um, you were going to tell us about the, um, analysis of how many people were at the festival this past year? Yes. Sorry. Yeah. So, um, Catherine Brenna, um, rec director, um, brilliantly managed to get access. It's very expensive to get this analysis, but it's, um, it's, it's analyzing, um, individual cell phone pings, which is a proxy for how many people, uh, individuals came through the event, you know, over the whole period of time. And they came up with a number over 6,000. So that's really something. And there has also been feedback from the town center businesses. And the, uh, overwhelming feedback from the businesses is that they pretty much all had their best day ever. So very, very, um, strong, you know, positive, um, going out from townspeople and the businesses. It's going to be a very different relationship with them going.
And we're looking at, um, we're looking at October 3rd, but I want to reach out to the interfaith leaders association, uh, because it's Saturday and we want to be respectful of the Jewish, um, Sabbath. Um, but, uh, Columbus Day weekend is absolutely out. Too many people, um, are away or have other plans on that weekend. And the thing about scheduling for an outdoor event on a Saturday is that if we do have bad weather, it gives us that really important buffer opportunity to do a rain date on Sunday if we absolutely need to. Thank you so much. Those are difficult issues to navigate. And thank you for all that you and Yahoo and Marianne and others are, are doing on this festival. It's amazing. And if anybody wants to volunteer to be a captain, that sounds really important. So I like that. We're supportive. Yeah. Thank you. Captains need teams. Exactly. Um, any other announcements or topics not anticipated? 20, 48 hours and events. Yeah. If I may. Yeah. If I may. Oh, one of the things that, uh, maybe belongs in this, this circle of, uh, of opportunities. That is, uh, the Alliance for Metro West unity and organization. It was established some 38 years ago. Uh, and it, we put on a John Garahan. Breakfast at the verve. And the only reason I'm saying this now is that it's in may. And it's at the, uh, at the verve in, in native. But what we do is we solicit every school. And Waylon has been cooperative and sent us the name of a student who is a junior that does work in diversity within their schools and, or in any other fashion that they do. And the names are usually solicited to us. We take their names. We get, uh, every student gets a citation from the house, a citation from the Senate, uh, that receives a, uh, uh, a, uh, a, uh, a tuition assistance from Framingham State University and, uh, a beautiful, beautiful, big citation from the Alliance. Uh, all that they can use is references for college. So if you know your principal or you have contact with the Guardian Center, just, uh, make sure that they're participating this year. I, I hope to have the returns from students that we're giving out to 15 different schools in the, in the Metro West area. So just something to bring, think about if you happen to know somebody in the school system in the 11th grade, we want a student who does work in this area. That's right up your alley. Yeah. So send us the information so we can share it, please. Uh, well, the information has already been sent to the schools, so they have the information and, uh, I, I want to use my email address. Uh, it's Bob on spark at AOL.com. Very hard to remember, but anyway, uh, if you want to send it to us, send it to me and I'll give, send the information out to you. Be happy to do it. Thanks. Yeah. All right. Well, we appreciate Wayland's participation. Thank you. All right. And it's always good to hear another person who still has an AOL.com. Thank you. I do too. Yeah. We won't ask our age. All right. Then let us, uh, adjourn. Will somebody move for us to adjourn? I move. I move. I move. I move. I move. Immediately. Okay. Will someone second that? Second. Heather second. Okay. Let us vote on that. Um, Heather. Yes. Yes. Yahoo. Yes. Thank you. Uh, Kevin. Yes. Jenna. Yes. Marianne. Yes. Sophie. Yes. Thank you. And Karen. Yes. So we are adjourned at 8.06.