HomeMy WebLinkAbout2022-02-07 Council on Aging Minutes"RE'C'EIVED
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Town Meeting
mute TOWN CLERK
Meeting Minutes READING, fFiA.
T -IC-
2023 JAN -9 AH H: : 27
Board —Committee - Commission — Council:
Date: 2022-02-07 Time: 6:30pm
Purpose: Council on Aging
Location: Zoom Meeting
Members Present: Jackie Behenna/here, Joan Coco/here Karen Fotino/yes, John Parsons/here, Karen
Pinnette/here, Sandy Shafer/here, Marilyn Shapleigh/here, Nancy Ziemlak/here,
Members Not Present: Sally Hoyt/not here, Debbie Small/not here, Barbara Carney/not here, Jolyn Ek/not
here
Others Present: Amy O'Brien, EHS Director/Mark Dockser, Select Board Liaison
Minutes Respectfully Submitted by: Nancy Ziemlak
Meeting Called to Order at 6:35
Motion made to accept minutes from December 22: all members voted in favor to accept minutes
with note to correct punctuation and capitalization.
Motion made to accept minutes from the January 22 meeting all members present voted in favor
EHS Update AMY
• Jean Delios and Kevin Brohmiller will be meeting with consultant to talk about the outreach flyer and
strategize the best way for it to be part of the overall public outreach in conjunction with the ReCalc.
• PSC training a new receptionist her name is Eileen Mack
• Scheduled Drive by next week for Valentine's Day, 2/15 1-2pm. New Town Manager, Fidel Maltez,
visited the center to tour and meet staff. Also, PSC will be hosting a coffee hour to welcome him to
Reading. A tent will be set up on the patio again in late March early April. Tin bucket event to be
rescheduled to late March 3/23 or 30 for a painting event. My Senior Center training was done on
Monday 10-3 for all staff. Will be producing reports soon.
ReCalc Meeting Discussion
Attendees generated several ideas to provide feedback to ReCalc beginning with the list generated by the
Committee. It was noted that most of the items on the list show up in past survey's etc. Suggestions included:
o room that's set up like a movie theater
o space to sell gently used items to raise money for programs. In Lynnfield, this run by the Friends of
COA
o increased use of virtual reality equipment it's becoming more and more of a technology that is being
explored for benefits it has for seniors
o waiting reception area
o bathrooms on every floor
o room set up for activities without the staff having to set up furniture
o a library resource room
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o swimming pool
ReCalc List:
o there's not enough space to run these kinds
of activities
o include athletics fitness locker room and
showers
o multiple programs at the same time
o set up cleaning coordinated maintenance
and storage
o common space
o meals with a real kitchen
o a meeting space small group space
o program staff and space
o support for people supporting elders
o private counseling space
o affordability programs specialty rooms for
things like crafts
Short Term Programming
o supportive day care licensed
o a covered carport for inclement weather
o recharging stations for electric vehicles
o food pantry
o function as a emergency center when
there's extreme heat or extreme cold
o health services
0 outdoor patio bocce courts
o indoor and outdoor space
o adult day care
o transportation and nutrition services
o some fun activities like dance music
o special speakers cooking classes
o special trips
Let's look at replacing what we had to eliminate and see if we can re -instate some of these programs. Ideas
suggested included:
• Reinstating mid-day meals at the PSC as was done prior to the pandemic. Although mid-day meals
were offered there were complaints about the food and the participation on a daily basis was low.
Catering is an option vs installing a kitchen. Special events with outside catered meals were well
attended and often created a waiting list. In an earlier meeting Kevin said he was exploring the option
of collaborating with local restaurants once a month to provide meals at the center. These lunches
were popular and offered social interaction opportunities. We would have to strategize how to fairly
accommodate the participants. Karen explained that Pearl Street facility has small kitchen at the
property and has looked into minimally outfitting the kitchen. The cost was over forty thousand dollars
and that's not pots pans, etc. Data is needed in order to explore this further.
• Explore other options for locations. Consider renting the space over by market basket it may alleviate a
lot of the stresses that we're having with the facility we're in for the short term we could probably get
grant money
Upgrade Life -Alert buttons
Need for Data
• Karen and Nancy asked the question, how do we know that the projects that the group is selecting are
the ones that are needed by the seniors in the community? Is the intent of EHS to continue servicing
the 1000 people that currently use the center which would be a fairly easy? Or to reach out to the
community to encourage more use of the services? It was agreed that we need data to move forward
to identify specific programs/services, etc.
How Does the COA Move Forward to the next step
• Marilyn asked how do we structurally and organizationally begin to get these ideas into the planning
phase. Meeting once a month makes it really difficult to move forward on any ideas.Do we need to set
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up subcommittees to perform research? Are people up to volunteering outside of our scheduled
meetings? Can we meet twice a month (no interest)?
• Can we identify things for which we want to write a grant and provide the research to the person you
know that would need it and someone or multiple people who can actually volunteer to do the grant?
If not, we need to be recruiting more volunteers. It's not that we really disagree with each other we
just haven't got the people power to move things forward.
Thursday 2/17 a* Ole" a6the PSC update 3129�22
Consultant
Mark's assumptions is that ReCalc will meet with the consultant talk about the survey and the types of
questions to be asked. It's important that there is context in addition to the questions so that people will be
better able to answer the questions and we get the info that we need to move forward. Marilyn mentioned
that is why sending out the COA flyer is so important prior to the survey mailing.
ReCalc's timeline:
Mark responded that roughly in
• Feb -March: ReCaic,COA,EHS,Public Services will work with the consultant to develop survey to be used
to determine needs.
• April 25: ReCalc presents the needs assessment strategy and status report to town meeting 4/25.
• March -June: In addition to the survey, the Consultant conducts 4 public meeting to solicit community
feedback.
• November: ReCalc presents to Town Meeting recommendations in order for ReCalc to move to the
next step.
ENS outreach & planning
• A Draft of the flyer was included in the packet for discussion. It is a paper version of the current EHS
and PSC website so it's not specific to any one month in contrast to Pleasantries instead it's a
document that shows the range of what's available. Mark suggested it should be sent out no later
than March because if ReCalc starts doing surveys and this information will provide context.
• After much discussion a motion was made that we mail out the flyer for mailing costs of up to ten
thousand dollars using whatever fund has been used in the past for mailings. It was seconded. Roll
call: six in favor one opposed. Motion passes.
• Joan Coco yes
• Karen Fatino yes
• John Parsons no
• Karen Panetta yes
• Sandy Shaffer yes
• Marilyn Shapleigh yes
• Nancy Ziemlak yes
Reconsideration
• After the vote Amy asked will this be dependent on Kevin as he and Jean Delios are planning to meet
with the consultant. At past meetings Kevin has shared his opinion that this is not the right time to
send this information out to the community. There is a concern that this will generate increased
participation or phone calls. Amy stated that a plan needs to be in place to handle these contingencies
if they occur.
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• Marilyn reiterated that there is nothing in this flyer that tells anybody to do anything but it's simply
taking verbatim from the website and putting it on the flyer.
• Amy explained that the staff want to make sure that they are doing the best they can with what we
have and if people turned away then it's kind of like shooting ourselves in the foot.
• Marilyn added that we are in essence turning people away now by not communicating what's
available. Although it's on the website, it's not easy to find, so many people may not know these
services are available. The will affect how people will answer the survey and we will find ourselves in
the same place 6 months from now. We've got to start moving forward and it would be really
distressing during this assessment period not to be able to find out what people need.
• Kevin is meeting with Jean Delios to review the flyer and strategies to discuss with the Consultant. It
was agreed that the sooner the COA can be involved the more likely we can dovetail these operations
and coordinating it with ReCalc
• As a result of the discussion a motion was made for a reconsideration of the previous motion. It was
Seconded, vote taken six in favor of reconsideration and one opposed. Motion passed to reconsider.
• Joan Coco yes • Sandy Shaffer yes
• Karen Fotino yes • Marilyn Shapleigh yes
• John Parsons yes • Nancy Ziemlak no
• Karen Pinette yes
Next vote was to reconsider the original motion to spend up to 10 grand out of whatever the fund was that we
used in the past for pleasantries to get something out by end of February. It was seconded. Final vote: six
opposed to it and one in favor. As a result of the vote the Flyer will not be mailed to Reading residents this
month.
• Joan Coco no
• Sandy Shaffer no
• Karen Fotino no
• Marilyn Shapley no
• John Parsons no
• Nancy Ziemlak yes
• Karen Pinette no
Future Agenda Item(s): Pandemic Survey
Motion to adjourn at 8 40. All in attendance voted in the affirmative.
To watch the meeting in its entirety click on the link below. If the link is not active: highlight and copy this link,
open your browser, past link into search bar, press enter: httos://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oobNRCGN rY
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