Name: Medford Arts Council 09/28/26
Uploaded: 2026-09-29
Duration: 1 h 21 s
Description: The Medford Arts Council met to introduce new members, review ongoing public art projects, and prepare for the upcoming annual grant cycle. The council discussed its approximately $100,000 budget and established a schedule for evaluating grant applications through November.

AI-generated summary. Written by gemini-3-flash-preview from the transcript below, which is the record. It may be incomplete or wrong; it does not report votes. Every item links to the moment it began.

The Medford Arts Council met to introduce new members, review ongoing public art projects, and prepare for the upcoming annual grant cycle. The council discussed its approximately $100,000 budget and established a schedule for evaluating grant applications through November.

0:22 Introductions and Membership Process — Existing and prospective members introduced themselves and reviewed the requirement to attend three meetings prior to being officially appointed to the board.
10:07 Logan Park Tree Project Update — Tyler Tostin announced that an artist has been selected for the Logan Park tree sculpture project, which is expected to begin next month and finish within eight months.
13:57 Tufts Field Project Proposal — The council submitted a proposal for Tufts University master's students to conduct research and provide data on cultural planning and department expansion models in Medford.
19:01 Financial Reconciliation and Budget Update — Board members discussed reconciling the annual budget of approximately $100,000, which includes roughly $37,000 from the state and $60,000 to $65,000 from the city.
26:36 Grant Application Status and Adjudication Process — Tyler Tostin reported that 16 applications totaling nearly $30,000 have been received so far and reviewed the weighted scoring rubric and disciplinary categories used for evaluation.
42:54 Marketing and Outreach — The council discussed strategies to diversify the applicant pool by sharing grant information through social media, neighborhood email lists, and local maker spaces.
54:08 Meeting Schedule and Planning — The council scheduled its next meetings for October 19 and November 16, with a virtual wrap-up meeting set for December 14.
57:25 Grantee Celebration — Members discussed early planning and potential local venues for a spring event to celebrate new grant recipients.

[Laura Jasinski]: Hey everybody. Hi there. We are working on getting the owl up and running.

[Laura Jasinski]: It's like it's the camera that like pans around so you don't have to just stare at me but in the meantime you're just gonna stare at me. That's okay. We have a number of people in the room and that way you'll be able to see them too. I can turn this around, but why don't, I think our first agenda item was just doing, we have some people that joined us last time for the first time, we have some other new folks here, so we'll spend a little less time this meeting on doing intros, but still thought we'd go around and do that, just as we continue to welcome new members and potential members to the Arts Council. I can start, and then I'll try to turn you all, so you can see people in the room until we get the technology going. I'm Laura Jasinski. I'm one of the co-chairs of the Arts Council. I've been on the council since 2020 or so. Yeah, I served as a treasurer and now as co-chair, so I've had a variety of roles here. I will go this way.

[Unidentified]: Hi, I'm Irene. I'm one of the council members. How long have you been on the council? A little under a year. I came in right at the end of the last review process.

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: Hello, everyone. My name is Tyler Tostin. We're going into my third cycle. So it's into my third year. I am the grants manager, meaning I am handling all of the incoming grants right now and will help to facilitate our adjudication process, which we are launching into very soon.

[Unidentified]: Hello, and hello. I'm Kristen McDuffie, and I've been serving as the treasurer, and I have been on the same amount of time as Kyle. It was the third season.

[Laura Jasinski]: We've had lots of improvements since we've had all these new folks.

[Unidentified]: And hi, I'm Sheila Arons. I'm not on the board, but I've been around for many years helping out. And I live in West Medford. Hi, my name is Meredith Gully, and I was on the meeting last time virtually. This is my second meeting. I'm just interested in helping out and seeing what happens. Hi, I'm Jen Bailey. This is actually my first meeting, so I'm happy to be here and meet all of you. And could we ask people that were here at the last meeting to, I don't know, if they sign into the chat, will we be able to get it?

[Laura Jasinski]: Yeah, let's make sure we get everyone's email address. We tried to send it out through the channels. We realized we hadn't captured exactly everyone's email that had attended.

[Unidentified]: So if they put it in the chat, will we be able to capture that after the meeting is over? I don't know how that works. No.

[Laura Jasinski]: We are finishing introductions, so why don't we go to Subarna and when you're ready to give an introduction.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. Hello, everyone. I'm Subarna. I live in West Medford. This is technically my second or third cycle, second cycle. Yeah. But with Mac for over one and a half years now, but yeah, still. New to it.

[XXXXXX00116_SPEAKER_01]: This is my second meeting and I live in the hillside and yeah, interested in joining.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Brian, hi, I'm Ryan Abercrombie. I moved to West Medford about a year ago. This is my 2nd meeting. Just looking to get more involved.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Mary hi, Mary Kearns. I called in briefly to the last meeting, but had a family emergency and had to leave, but I moved to Metro a couple of years, a few years ago, and I'd like to join the Arts Council.

[Laura Jasinski]: So, well, glad you're back and thanks for returning. So to make sure we've captured everybody here and make sure we can continue communicating with everybody in the future as you're interested in coming to meetings. We do post all of the agendas publicly on the city's website. Sometimes that's a little bit hard to find. So. For folks in person, I think there's a sheet. You put your name down and email address and then if folks online, just make sure we have the right contact for you. If you could drop your email in the chat, I'll copy that over to make sure that we're capturing. Names of everybody that are joining and interested in joining.

[Laura Jasinski]: Great. So what we'll kind of do is go through a little bit more. We spent a little more time last meeting. We'll have about an hour tonight. We'll give a couple of introductions on updates on projects that we're working on. I think that'll kind of give a good flavor of just the types of things we do. Our kind of larger agenda item will be we're getting ready to really launch into this year's grant cycle. So we'll talk a little bit about what that looks like in terms of budget and process and next steps. I have a few things after that. Hopefully we'll have a few minutes at the end. So if anything is like, unclear or you have questions, we can talk also about the process of applying officially through the city and kind of our process to be a member of the council. I can actually just do that right now. We've mentioned this last meeting, but we ask folks to attend 3 meetings before you come on the board and have a sign of you're willing to commit the time show up monthly. And I'd say it's definitely something where we, you know, a group that we're always looking for people to kind of like, Jump right in and offer some support. There's areas where we need a lot of help coming up on our grant cycle. That's a kind of the most active period. We're doing something similar, but there's also an opportunity to help in different areas of communication or if you're great at spreadsheets and data and like, that's also really helpful for us.

[Laura Jasinski]: We can hook this screen up to there. I think the problem is that camera on the owl isn't working.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, it's when the shows are both of you and we can watch you talk. That's.

[Laura Jasinski]: Yeah, so that's kind of our process. And then we did put in the bottom, there's a link and I can send that out to there is a city website that the city requests that you put an information. About to like, officially apply through their channels too. I do think I'm waiting for confirmation. The rule has changed recently. We're now, like, I think the city council has to approve all of the appointees or trying to understand what that means. for all intents and purposes of moving forward in these meetings, I think the three meetings and then we vote. So it can take some time. And then there's also like a requirement of doing conflict of interest training as kind of an appointed member. So that tends to take some time, but as we get to that with kind of the three meeting mark with folks, if they're interested in kind of joining, we can help that and help shepherd that with mayor's office. Great, so I do think we have a couple things to dig into, and then we can, again, like I said, try to hold some time at the end for questions, and that's always helpful, I think, for us to know what interested members want to understand more about that comes in. Um, all right, so quick updates, try to keep this fairly quick. You can move on with the cool.

[Laura Jasinski]: This is something we've been trying to think about how we maybe include. A young person, you know, someone under 18, kind of the youth perspective on the council, or maybe have opportunities for them to help us that might help with their volunteer hours. So. An example of a project that can happen in parallel to. Logan tree project.

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: So, just for context over the last 2 or 3 years, the city has requested. Funding from us for a tree in Logan Park, which is. In, I don't know, East, where do I live?

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: They completely renovated the entire park very recently. And there is an oak tree there that had been, that had basically died. They cut the top off of it and left a giant tree trunk. They had applied for funding in order to get an artist to come in and turn that into some form of an art installation. It took quite some time. I know all of this because I live adjacent to this park and look out my front door every day and see this tree stump. It's very ugly and it won't be for much longer. I was part of as a, as a representative of the bed for council and as a dedicated person who cares about this park, because of where I live, I was part of a panel of. seven or eight different people from a variety of different disciplines. We got together. They've received applications for this project. We have selected an artist. We expect the project to start next month, theoretically. But the selection has been made. The artist has agreed. The timeline was supposed to be done by the end of 2026. There is a spring window from this artist if it just doesn't move fast enough. So they do expect it to be done you know, within the next eight months. So, very exciting. It's a beautiful proposal, turning the tree back into a tree with cubes, wooden branches. It's this like really cool sculptural artwork and we are looking into potentially doing some kind of a community engagement where you can even like put your initials on one of the cubes or engage with the cube somehow so then it becomes part of the art. So it's a really cool artist and a really great looking project and fingers crossed it happens to go out later.

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: I still have access to that. But yeah, it's very cool. So we had, I think we had 10 different applications, narrowed it down to three, and then ultimately picked this artist. And it's very exciting. Awesome.

[Laura Jasinski]: Yay. And perhaps also a good example of this, and the poet laureate has done this process too, where when the city is running a program or a project, sometimes they ask for a member of the Arts Council to sit on a panel or selection panel to weigh in. So that has varied depending on basically who has capacity, interest, expertise.

[Unidentified]: And just so folks know, there's an It's right next to the Walgreens of the Paul Revere ride. So it's kind of cool. I didn't know anything about it when I went online and saw this woman's artwork. It's really nice.

[Laura Jasinski]: Paid for it, which is nice the 3rd project update was mine. So, the tops urban environmental policy and planning department does field projects every year with their 1st year master students to look at kind of a city planning. case study or projects come up with something they can provide recommendations on or further research on. And we talked about the potential to use the specific skill set of this master's program to help us look at how to do, how to increase cultural planning in the city. Probably as folks know, there's a lot happening with rezoning and just, you know, development and a lot opportunities for kind of cultural district planning that could also unlock more support for arts and culture in the city. I think 1 of the ways that we work is to try to advocate for that. And 1 of the tools that we need in advocacy is data and research to show. I think things that we all know, like, the arts have a return on investment and help, you know, build vibrant city culture and, you know, but we talked about putting in a proposal. To see if the students could kind of work with us, which would. You know, we kind of be their client and to look at maybe neighboring cities of a similar scale, see how they built up arts and culture, what their department staffing looks like with this budget looks like how they've how they've grown and other tools that they've used to grow. And so I reached out to. Alicia, the head of the planning department, who was on board with this and also arts collaborative Medford, since they are a partner, they had already also put in an application for the same program, but they said, sounds great to work together. So, we basically said, we'll put in 1, but then I emailed the professor who was a former professor of mine and said. When you get down to looking at these know that and there it's council and the city are kind of all on board. They kind of look at initial proposals and then bring the groups together to kind of make sure the scope is appropriate for the student group and doable in a semester.

[Laura Jasinski]: There's also looking at kind of where arts kind of sits within. like arts and culture in Medford, its role, I think, and how to expand. And I think that is something we'd also be like, very interested in, like, how, how should we, I think we've talked about, like, how should we really be distinct from arts collaborative? And like, how can we support how, like, where should that overlap be? And other groups, right? I think something we've also all looked at is, and we talked about this in our grant cycle, where are the places that we can promote even more, you know, whether it's programs or public art installations, or support more individual artists. We have a library, we have a senior center, we have a condens shell, but how can we also think about where we're missing that in the city? So I think there'd probably be an equity on it as well, which I think would be of interest to students with the program. I think it's a strong proposal. We haven't heard back yet. I also think it's really helpful to have, as all volunteers here, we would need to spend some time working with the students on the student schedule. I personally would be happy to help. I think others would, too. But it would be nice to also have ACM to be able to provide more capacity to really drive that. And the city. The city is a really important part of that, too. And they were open to it. So I think it makes for a good proposal. But a lot of folks don't want to hear back.

[Unidentified]: OK, yeah. I went to that program. Me too. I went before you. I did that project. I did too. It's fun if it's a good place.

[Unidentified]: Like, you know, you want somebody who actually is taking it seriously.

[Laura Jasinski]: But I also think that the professors make sure they put out some really good products that, you know, provide some needed Yeah, just research and data. So I think there is still plenty of room to shake it, but we'll see. All right, any questions about that, anybody?

[Laura Jasinski]: It'll be for the spring, yeah. It's the spring semester, which would be fast, right? I mean, the semester schedule versus the rest of life. But I think it's something that the mayor would be open to as well as the city council from conversations. We've had more data to support that.

[Unidentified]: It would be really cool to have more data. Yeah. Yeah. And get more murals.

[Laura Jasinski]: Absolutely. Okay, great. So this is kind of our last meeting before we really launch into the glance. Uh, 1 thing that Kristen, Irene and I have been working on is reconciling the money that we have with what the city thinks we have, which is not really anticipating a lot of surprises, but is it both part of our funding comes from Massachusetts cultural council about 35,000 dollars. And that has typically been about 60,000 dollars coming from the city annually. So we generally had a budget about 90,000 dollars each year. The first step in deciding how much we give out in a given year of that, because we can hold some back, we can use them for different purposes, is to sit down with the Director of Finance in the city, Bob, and then Lisa Coliani from the mayor's office usually joins as well because she helps us on the back end. The MCC, the state, requires that our money is in a separate bank account. Um, from the city, which is a different way than they typically operate with other. Boards and commissions, because there's that interface. So, sometimes that. Like, just we don't have, like, full transparency, right? Like, we get a monthly statement from our bank account, but we're and but we're not seeing, like, each transaction.

[Unidentified]: So, yeah, they basically will. out of from the city and then they'll transfer from our bank account to cover whatever they paid out but it doesn't line up one-to-one because what happens is people get offered they get award the grant and then they request them many times all through the year and some they can request them immediately it's they don't be reimbursed people who haven't requested from January. And anyway, so they can request at any time, but then they have to have like a physically signed W4, and they have to, you know, put all the right information that they're not already set up as a vendor with the city, and the city needs to set them up as a vendor, and there's a couple steps. So if they're already a vendor with the city, usually it comes right in, and then it gets reviewed, and it gets processed, and then kind of within a month or two it gets paid. But sometimes there's lag and so it's a little, it can be a little bit tricky when we get the, I reconcile every month just like, I keep track of how much they're transferring out and then like vaguely try to see if it's like within the ballpark of what's been, what they say they've approved and what they've paid. But this, having this conversation with them, even still, the way that they do their accounting, it's like, it's a little mysterious um and so even just working on it for the past two and a half years we haven't like got total clarity but we feel like we pretty much have a grasp on how much money we have to spend. And we definitely have the money that we're granted every year. The question has been, did we have a little bit? How much more work do we need? Yeah. And do you, like, if let's say people didn't use it or whatever, can that be then carried over to be given out this year? Like, it's not, like, it's gone. It doesn't go away. Once they submit it and it's been, like, once they request it from the city, I consider that gone. Yeah. Because we're it's really just a matter of administrative. Yeah, like, well, yeah, that will go out. Yeah. And so last year was claimed the year before. I think there were four that weren't. And then this year we only have three left that haven't been claimed. So I think, so usually I send out a reminder in the summer and then I'll send out another reminder for those last three to just say, hey kids, don't forget. Because obviously we wanted the projects to be done. So yeah, so but we only have, it's only like $3,000 that hasn't been claimed.

[Laura Jasinski]: So it's a pretty small amount relatively. And we have to give them a full year to claim their money based on the state guidelines, which doesn't line up with when we make decisions for the following year. So it's like we might have more back going into our reserves, but it's not going to be for the next immediately next grant cycle. It'll trail.

[Unidentified]: But that's also why we try to get our grant process done quickly and communicate quickly, because the faster we communicate, the sooner the quanta is. It's helpful. And also encourage people to claim their money. Yeah. Yeah. Claim their money.

[Unidentified]: Yeah, but generally speaking, we've been awarding those two amounts combined. And we have a little bit more this year from master's students. It's 37,100. From what from the state?

[Laura Jasinski]: Okay. Yeah. And then the city, it's been 60,000 the past few years, but there was talk of having it be 65 this year, but Bob has an answer. I did try to ask Bob if he could confirm the amount before tonight's meeting. We didn't hear back, but our meeting with Bob is Friday. Our deadline to kind of finish the process, which is through a state. The MCC online portal, where we kind of fill out the form and put in the information that deadlines. October 15th, so we still have time. We had hoped to have that meeting before this meeting. So we could say, this is the amount of money we have, but we will have that soon. And it's probably around it's either like, yeah, 100,000.

[Unidentified]: So, even more reason for people can go ahead and yeah, wait, yeah, whatever happened with the money that they were supposed to give us for a part time staff person. I don't know.

[Laura Jasinski]: I've still been trying to follow up with that that that something we advocated for as a part of the budget for the city. was a partial FTE to be a more direct liaison with the planning department and with us. We're supported by Lisa Kalyani in the mayor's office right now. It's not her primary role. She supports all boards and commissions, but unlike some of the other boards, they have a direct staff person. We've been advocating for that to help really unlock more resources for arts and culture. I've been trying to find that. Bob will know. Maybe Bob will know Lisa will know we should definitely ask that directly. It was a part of the mayor's budget. And I'm forgetting the exact words, it's hard to administrator. It was like, it's like, it was like a section of her budget. That got tied up in some back and forth between the city council and the mayor around the legal. The. providing more background and documentation on the city's legal budget. So there was, they had been going, but last I heard they were going kind of like a month to month budget at the city. I don't know that that's still the case and I hope it's not still the case, but we'll ask. Okay. It's not easy to find. But we will continue to push for that too. Um, so more to come, but we think it's around 100,000. Up to me now application.

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, here we go. So we have, as of today, 16 applications for just shy of $30,000. I have already sent six of them back, two of them for the second time. And just for everyone's understanding, I go through every application when they are on submission for the first few weeks of the process to make sure that they are abiding by our standards that are very clearly defined. And we are very transparent about it. But the biggest one being that we require a letter of support from the venue. The second one that is most egregiously ignored is the amount that we request. And if you're over a certain amount, we highly recommend that you get supported funding from someone else other than us. And those are the two that are most often $5,000, right? It's $5,000. If you're over $2,500, we recommend looking to get additional funding. If it is at $5,000 or above, we rarely ever do anything more than $5,000. We rarely do $5,000. And if you are, then we require that you have additional support, financial support, or at least that you're looking for it. And those are the two things that are most often ignored. And so we, the first year that really put us behind our timeline. So we have the last, this is a second season cycle now that we are trying to kind of nip that in the bud beforehand, get as many people fully applied accurately before the deadline. And we have the state reopen applications that are not. And we inform them that they have action required and they need to resubmit. So that is where we currently stand. What's the deadline again? The deadline is the 15th of October. Okay. But that was the prelim check that you were doing, which is closed now. Yeah, I was giving people till the first, but I... As in we informed everyone as the 21st being the date, but then... Yeah, I'm generous when it comes to reviewing.

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: But the deadline of when we are willing to give you a preliminary review, which is not required by the state, but it does help us in the long term. It is usually, I don't want to do it less than two weeks from the deadline. So that is where we stand at the moment. Just for everyone to know, we usually get somewhere close to 90 applications, as you can imagine. submit them at the last minute. So that's that. What I will do before our next meeting is go through all of them, basically preliminarily reject anyone who did not abide by the protocols and requirements. With the pool of viable applicants, we will then split them up by discipline. We will have different pools of people based on the number of people that are on the council at that time. And we will review them, score them, give a recommendation on funding, and then we all come back together and confirm who and how much we will give for that.

[Unidentified]: And by discipline, you mean, I mean, I know what the word means, but okay.

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: So inside of the MCC, when you are applying, you have to pick what artistic or cultural discipline your project is in. There are 14 dance, music, Photography, Media, Arts, Literature, Interdisciplinary, Folk, Tradition, Humanities, Multidisciplinary.

[Unidentified]: from five to seven. They use a number code but we've never gotten something in that number so I don't know what it is.

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: Mysterious sixth discipline. Typically we get mostly music and or visual arts and the last one being multi-disciplinary. So what I try to do is then build around there so that each of the teams are close to comparable in size and number of applications that they have to review. So just for all the new folks again, just a quick reminder of how this goes. So I will build the teams today or at least get where you would want to be today and what kind of general discipline you want to be in. We will then get our full packet of all of the applications and I will Again, boot the ones that don't pass, and then I would so much help to make us a spreadsheet that allows us to then adjudicate based off our criteria that we have set out. You can look for it on our website. It's a weighted score that we give to every application. Then that cohort will get together, come up with a final grade and a recommendation on how much you will fund. And then I will get everyone's scores and everyone's amounts, see how much we are too far, because we always want to give out more money than we have. and then send it back to you all for quick tightening, and then collectively we all come together and get our final recommendations. So that is October and November meetings. December, we aim to get everything sent out. Is that true? Yeah.

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: November is the full review, send out by the end of the year.

[SPEAKER_01]: Can I ask, can you talk about additional funds? Is that like a matching grant from somebody else? Is that what you're looking for?

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: It could be matching. It could be corporate funding. It could be that you are selling tickets and you have a way to bring in some revenue. We don't necessarily care where the additional money comes from as long as it is either confirmed or it is it is something you have is intentionally part of your budget.

[Unidentified]: It's real. Because it's mostly about viability, like, yeah, if you need $20,000.

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: If you need $20,000, you're asking us for $5,000, where's the rest coming from? If you're asking for $10,000 from us and we don't give $10,000, what are you going to do if we only give you $5,000? We want those questions answered beforehand. Yes, it's all about viability, which is why the other big thing here is if they don't, they say they want to do it at this venue, but they haven't asked the venue if they can do it there. That is one of the biggest problems of viability that we often have are facing.

[Laura Jasinski]: We usually do in the, is it the October or the November or last year when there were some places that were a little bit. Like, for example, the Condon Shell, the Parks Department, doesn't give permits until January. So it's more like, can you show proof that you know that and you're in communication with them, is what we've tried to let people know. That you understand that there is work to be done to secure the venue and that you've started that process.

[Unidentified]: And if they've done the event at the Condon Shell for 10 years, then that's also solid proof.

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: But if you just did one on September 20th and are applying for us money for us now, you're probably not going to get it, which is an application that we have received. Wait, what do you mean by that? Their event was 10 days ago.

[Laura Jasinski]: I'll talk to them again. Wait, but it's for- My neighbor. And I told them to apply for next year.

[Unidentified]: Are you is there any goal to try to like try to have something, you know each of the 14 things like is the goal to be like Oh, yeah, we get a lot of music, but we actually don't want to just do only music Is that like intentionally thought about it?

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: How do you think about that? We obviously try to fund as many projects as we can. We try to fund them in full. The partial funding we've done in the past has not always been fruitful. We are very cognizant of the fact that we don't want to just give our 30 music venues a bunch of things. We want to show as many disciplines as we can, but we are not holding ourselves to saying this is a bad application, but because we have nothing in photography, we're going to give it to them anyway.

[Unidentified]: But it is a factor in thinking about things. If things were equal, you would go with the one that we don't have versus the one we do have.

[Laura Jasinski]: I think a lot of that discussion happens in the groups that we break up into to review. And that's just part of the factoring in and the art part, the art and the science of having the rubric but having that discussion in a small group.

[Unidentified]: And what about new versus past ones? Because I know there's a lot of people that come here for funding every year that are great, great things.

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: do you get extra points for that or is that like you know kind of like we want to have new things i would definitely recommend looking at the the full okay um the new ones new new applications get have a weighted score um so they they have five percent of the hundred is for you you get okay that was five percent if you are new okay so we are saying like if you have not applied this is the first time five percent get the score you are getting extra and then if there are like

[SPEAKER_05]: say eight people doing the same kind of event in two different venues, which is like four and four, but somebody else comes and wants to do it apart. So something definitely that will get automatically a little bit more because of it's different.

[Unidentified]: And is there, sorry, is, Are those who apply, do they need to be residents or do they just need to be performing or whatnot in Medford? Or if they're applying as a group, does only one person have to be? residing in Medford or does the whole group have great questions?

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: We do not have a requirement that you are a resident of Medford. The project has to serve Medford. So there are we sometimes get applications from last year we got one from Stoneham Theatre and they were requesting funding to bring Medford students to their venue. So that is a viable application. But obviously we are not ignorant to the fact and we want to be aware of Medford-based artists. There is something that we are supportive, extra supportive of there as well.

[SPEAKER_05]: Like there's a band that will perform in the square, not square, Medford Square. Riverside? No, no Riverside Park, somewhere. Yeah, maybe Riverside Park. but they have like seven or eight people, one or two are from Wentworth, they're doing it in Wentworth, in the public space, so.

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: We are also very cognizant of what venues are being utilized. So as Laura already said, we have a bit of a problem with a weighted geographic area that is getting extra service because the venues are near in that area. We want to be really cognizant that we don't want every program we fund to take place in this building that we're in right now in the library. We also don't want them to over serve the senior center. We want to support seniors at the senior center and we want to make sure that things are accessible to the public. and that they are accessible to a diverse array of audience members. So we are cognizant that even though those two places and Arts Collaborative are some of the easiest venues to get letters of support for and to get free or affordable space at, we are very cognizant that we want to spread the wealth of cultural opportunity throughout the entire city.

[Unidentified]: Yeah, and it's tricky because that specifically, and even the like, is it a Medford artist, those aren't criteria, weighted criteria. So that's why we have, we split it into these groups. And then we work on it as a team, we don't just like split all the disciplines separate and one person picks about that, you know, we have like, multiple people looking at all of them, and then we have conversations about it. It's not It can't be perfect because we can't, we don't have the capacity for every person to look at all 90 and to like think of their own personal integrated, you know, way that they would handle everything. So we kind of rely on each other, like the different groups to sort of raise a flag, like themes that they're seeing and whatever. But yeah, that's like what I said.

[SPEAKER_05]: Apply the month that you're doing a 15 days before for them to give you that permission. Oh, wow. That's the process something in that line. Sounds like a great system.

[Laura Jasinski]: I mean, you thought about a lot of like, it sounds like a great area. Of course, small groups will often like flag. Okay, here's a couple of things we should bring back to the right. Right. So it's like, this was this was a clear. Yes. This was a clear. No. Yeah. We made a decision about this 1, but this 1 really just there's more discussion.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I'm just like, and this is primarily 1 reason why we wanted somebody from the city as a full FDA, like, who does what and who connects to what they can do it much faster than we trying to chase people.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you, is there a place on the site where they have what grants were approved last year? So we can get it.

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: We can probably send out some links to all everyone that would be useful to send both to the rubric as well as to past grant recipients. That is definitely.

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: Yes, everything is on our website, but it's worth driving. Our website is not, it is wide.

[SPEAKER_01]: I said it would give us some perspective as to what you have done and how it all works. Okay.

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: Yes. And when something I also want to be. careful and be sure that we have is that someone in each team is a current existing member paired with some newbies. We want your perspective and we also know this is a complex process and that you might have a lot of questions along the way. So the first thing to know is that I am available to everyone throughout the whole process. You can email me to ask any questions or if you have any concerns or issues as you're going through it. I will, at the next meeting before we break out, probably try to share the spreadsheet and walk people through how to actually grade it and how it will work and what I expect from each team to have completed by the time and the dates and the due, all of those types of things.

[Unidentified]: He was our organizer with all of this. I have a question that might pertain to what we're doing. I love this. Where do you all solicit applications from?

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: So all of the application in terms of X. How do you reach out?

[Unidentified]: Especially when I hear like, oh, we have A lot of applications for these 2 categories, but not a lot for other categories to me. I'm thinking like, oh, well, that might be it. Part of the reason that might be is because of how we, how we do our outreach and I'm comedy is the number 6 category. Well, I can, I have a few WhatsApp groups that I can, but yeah, I think the answer is yes.

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: Spread the word, get the word out. Because we, I'd say marketing is something that we are now.

[Unidentified]: So Brian's been doing much more of that. That's why you're here, yeah.

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: Thank you. So what I would say is, we can get you the list to the links to where to apply get basically some of the same links you probably want to see as a member would want to share with the artists um and then if they need help with anything along the way we can support for the lcc the mcc can help with the local cultural console grid so and if you if you send a list of like where you've posted already you know i'm also happy to like

[Unidentified]: take a look at the list and be like, Oh, I, I know some, or maybe like we could all take a look and say, Oh yeah, I think we actually, there's another organization that maybe we should reach out to, or like, I know somebody else who might be interested in.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so primarily the sources of outreach is Instagram, email, whoever I subscribe to on the website. So, those are the two words and then word of mouth, let the city know, ask them to help promote it.

[Unidentified]: Do we, do we have any and then the same cycle for. all of Massachusetts. So everybody that's looking for grants from cities knows this is the time for local cultural council money. And so they would look for it.

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: And everyone is aware they want to do it. Yeah. And to your point, are we directly reaching out to specific groups or venues or collaboratives?

[SPEAKER_05]: I think probably not enough. So when I tell somebody and that person, I at least know three people. I see one, but somebody else. But I just know that these people are interested. They're like, oh, maybe we can do it something. So that's how it is working out.

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: Can you just specifically reach out to the, what's that third? Medford?

[Laura Jasinski]: It's not Arts Collaborative. It's not Cache. It's Medford Arts Collaborative.

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: But also, multiple of their leaders told me this past summer that they had never heard of us, which is shocking.

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: Either way, if you can send that to them, that would be really useful.

[SPEAKER_05]: No, no, we are sending it. As a matter of the email class, I think they are on it. I do send out, especially on the But be interesting I think to your point though of like, you know, the whole out what's the outreach list so that people could because I think like even like yeah What's that blue but then it is there are some nuances to it how to restrict the junk I have not yet figured that out Is there

[Unidentified]: Oh, the Medford subreddit? Yeah, the Medford subreddit would be. It's active.

[Unidentified]: And they're also neighborhood email lists. I know that Ball Square has a really active neighborhood list that I'm happy to submit to. So is there like a flyer or something? I would say from Instagram that could you send that? I mean, I'm just saying it's easier if it's like a visual and it looks nice.

[Laura Jasinski]: And your friend, I saw just like the website link has a ticker across it now. Yeah. Right. That's like click here for the grant. So like.

[Unidentified]: but we'll be freezing it if people want to share it out. We've already done the work. Right, it just seems like sending it out could be helpful. I have a friend at the Makerspace. I saw him at the farmer's market and actually my husband talked to him for quite a while. Yeah, Trey.

[SPEAKER_05]: I'm sure he could send it out. Yeah, he's always informing his team.

[Unidentified]: Yeah, he's really great guy. Places like Artisans Asylum, places like that, I'd be happy to share with there.

[Laura Jasinski]: Let's also meet with Lisa. I'm seeing this a lot. Ask her to share again. Ask her if she's shared it, because I asked her.

[Unidentified]: The mayor can send alerts about all kinds of things. Yeah. Because of the housing authority and the Medford Family Network, I mean, and I assume the schools are part of it, because I know they've applied in the past, right? Because I've seen them on a list.

[Laura Jasinski]: They have, but I do think it's like once you know, you know, but you have to- Yeah, so I mean, that feels- Essentially, if you are aware of the grants,

[Laura Jasinski]: I'm going to put as a follow-up from this, and I will send an email, I hope, by the end of this week with everybody here on these to-dos, maybe just to learn how to send out the collateral to use, like here's the

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: thing to share and that if you want to do arts, and I think just like wherever you feel it would be appropriate for you to share, I don't know I think what would be great is to make a live spreadsheet that we can share with everybody that anyone who does post anything can put it on their list where they did it so that it is. We're basically creating the list that you're asking for as we do it.

[Unidentified]: It's such a great thing to have. It sounds like you've done a lot already. It's more like the new people, I think, is fresh and more than the old people.

[Laura Jasinski]: We have, in the last year, how far we've come in the last couple of years. Oh, no, it seems amazing what you've done. But these are like the next layers.

[Unidentified]: You're doing great. Well, this new group is really they've done a lot, you know, it's much more organized than it was.

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: I just want to be cognizant of time and ask folks if you had to pick a discipline that is your priority, that would be amazing if you don't mind, what would it be? And I'm just going to Be highly optimistic and say that everyone here is going to hit your three meetings by the time we need you to. And we'll commit to showing up the next time so that we would have you on that list and you would be able to become a member. Obviously, if that changes, that's fine. And if it doesn't work for you, we understand that. But it would be good to know now so I can start building teams in the case that you do join. So there were 15 things.

[Unidentified]: It's probably most important to think performing versus visual versus literary multidisciplinary and some kind of history.

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: where would you be someone who knows about it? I think it's both I think I know like for me I have a 15 year background in performing arts I ran a theater company that is where I can adjudicate that very well and so that is coming from that side whereas if you're coming from a I love watching I would pick what I would want to see. That is also a viable perspective and way to look at it. So again, just like we as a council are not, you do not have to be an artist to be on this council. We are potentially a receiver of the arts and a patron in that way. That is fine. So what is it that you would be most interested to learn about and to hear from these artists, whether you are doing it as an artist yourself or otherwise?

[Laura Jasinski]: Would you also like to hear if people would just be happy to place wherever?

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: And if you are, if you are cool with wherever fits, that's also great to know. Um, so I am performing arts.

[Unidentified]: Also generally visual arts slash music, but probably the least in the historical category.

[Laura Jasinski]: I'd say I'm happy to go wherever is needed, but my, I would be more like some things happening in the public realm and most helpful there in terms of what's needed in vetting budgets of public art or public performances.

[Unidentified]: I would do whatever I would do whatever but I the thing I know most the most about is sort of arts and crafts and things like that. Yes, and I'm also happy to be wherever. I'm interested in lots of things, but my expertise is more in theater, music, comedy, performing arts.

[SPEAKER_00]: My familiarity is mostly performing arts, but I'm happy to go wherever is needed.

[XXXXXX00116_SPEAKER_01]: Uh, yeah, my background would be visual arts, but I'll go over failed illustration major.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Mary, probably performing arts and literature, you know, sort of writing kind of those again, I can, I would be interested in supporting everything. What I'd really like to do is go on your website, look at what was done and that probably if I need to sort of finalize it, we can't see. I'm very interested in participating in this whole process.

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: Amazing. Thank you all very much. I will bring teams together and feel free to email if your preferences change. This is not set in stone. We can always move things around.

[SPEAKER_01]: So do I understand that the grant. Process in terms of submitting a grant proposal ends. October 15th.

[Laura Jasinski]: Um, I just a quick, we have 7 minutes left on the zoom call or this Google meet. I think we're gonna try to wrap up in those 7 minutes for instance of time. If for some reason we get like, completely cut off, I did just email all of you a 2nd. Google meet link welcome to being low budget and only having an hour on on that. Um. So do you have what you need? I have what I need. OK. Do we know the dates for the next meetings? Because they're not on the website. That is what we're going to confirm next. OK. Excellent. So right now we have October 19th and November 16th. And because I now have everybody's email addresses, I will send you those meeting links, calendar links. This is room five. OK. Both are in room five? Yeah. A little bit bigger. And the November 16th one will be a longer meeting, probably two hours. This is October 19th, November 16th.

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: It is never required that you're here on person in person, but the November meeting, it is useful. The more people we have in person, the better just to kind of be able to dig in and get the get the ratings completed and the recommendations done.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I'll put those out on the website as well. Great. I think did we set up the.

[Laura Jasinski]: I will do that. I have not done that yet. I will do that. And then. do we want to go ahead and set the December date? Just because I think usually we try to do the third Monday evening at this time. That will put us at December 21st, which is probably starting to get into time off for folks, potentially. Should we do the 14th? Or we could even do the 7th.

[Laura Jasinski]: I think we had sent, like, if there was any other wrap up to do with grantees communication back and forth because we had to do not has to go first.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's the 7th might be if it's wrapping up with the grants that might be good to do it on the 7th. I agree with you the 21st that's Easter that's Christmas week. So forget.

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: But does that give us enough time to do the 14th would give us time to do rejections to then get the. Okay. Well, theoretically, I'm trying to remember it as well.

[Unidentified]: Do we send the, yeah, I can't remember if we have to wait until the, after December to send them out.

[jMy4r_5VbVA_SPEAKER_03]: And the final acceptances we sent after two weeks. It has to be a two week delay. It was first week of December.

[Unidentified]: Yeah. Last year we did it on the eighth Of January. No, no, sorry. So, so you could have it that you're saying we could do that week in that work last year.

[Laura Jasinski]: We kind of need. Yeah, so I'm going to go with the 14 and we can also maybe look, let's put that on there. So back to the next meeting. And then maybe that's 1 that we would do, like, mostly virtual as opposed to in person.

[Laura Jasinski]: Let's just do that. Let's kind of do that one virtually, knowing that people might be starting to travel or have lots of commitments.

[SPEAKER_05]: So the denial notifications are due by 31st December, essentially end of year. Okay, so we are trying to get them sooner. Yeah, we try to get them sooner. Yeah.

[Laura Jasinski]: Okay, so that we can send this. And I'm going to abbreviate our last agenda item a little bit, but isn't a good 1 to think about 1 thing that we want to get back to doing that. I think we're actually required to do is do a grantee celebration. So I think at this point, we'd be talking about the upcoming cohort of grantees. So we could invite. previous ones, but if this is an interest area of yours in terms of helping to think about where we would have this, what this would look like, we tend to put some budget to it, nothing crazy. We've done it when they used to be around Augusta, we've done it as a part of one of, I think we tried one year to do it at one of the Condon Shell concerts where there's the beer garden and all that stuff. Let me leave this agenda item as, think about if that's something you're interested in raising your hand to help with. We've done it. It's varied. I think we would do it. We've typically done it more like next spring or something like that. So we have time, but those, but anybody that's planned events, no, those things take time. And we are always trying to do it a little bit late and finding dates is tricky. So I've committed to bringing this up on the agenda sooner than we typically have to something. Sheila's really helped us with a lot to think about if you want to help it.

[Unidentified]: We've done it at Rio Gusto because they've provided the food and set everything up, and it was just easy. And it was a lovely place. It really worked well, but they're not there anymore. I mean, I don't know if the food at Ibu Yusa would work. I mean, they do have Japanese pizza sometimes to think about. I mean, it is a nice space. But Tampa, I had talked to them at one point, But they weren't very good about responding, and we had already done something else.

[Laura Jasinski]: But they're fine, right? Yeah. They would do it. Anyway, this took my brain from me, thinking about those ideas, who we could ask.

[Unidentified]: But we'd have to bring food in. I don't know how we would do it at Medford Brewing. They bring food trucks sometimes, instead of hosting private events.

[SPEAKER_05]: We can coordinate with them. But then, yeah, that is something we can ask.

[Laura Jasinski]: Um, it could be bigger if we can get more folks there and get the word out. A lot of that has been like. Weather and all of that, but it's also been a nice thing to invite, like, the city council to and the mayor as another way of, like, and they usually the mayor and they usually come so. I'll put that out there as like, another area where this group could use. More support, but that's something that you're interested in.

[Unidentified]: Yeah, I had talked to them well, briefly. They were very I. call them many times and they didn't respond, but then finally they did and we already had things in place. That's a nice little spot.