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News/Events - Meeting Minutes

Members present: Jim Harmon, Pam Davis- Chairperson, Audrey Reidy, Joan Powers, Meg Stillman, Rita Rozen, Florence Choate – Director, Shawn Harris – Liaison: Board of Selectmen.

Meeting called to order at 6:10 PM.
Minutes of the October meeting were accepted.

Director’s reports: Outreach – the dept. attended training on accessing food stamp and Mass Health services for seniors on-line. This will speed up the handling, processing in half the time, if seniors need more than one service at the same time. Outreach dept. is handling several requests for aid due to cuts in Prescription Advantage. Transportation provided 450 daily rides, and 540 total rides for October. Florence attended the Mass. COA Conference. She attended several seminars and her primary interest was elder abuse and how to handle it, recruiting seniors aged 60-75 who generally don’t want to participate in activities at a senior center, and the social day program for caregivers. This offers people who take care of a spouse or family member the opportunity to drop someone off for the day where they will be well cared for, allowing the caregiver much needed time for running errands or to just have private time to themselves. Caregivers pay a set fee and COA’s who offer this program are making money doing it. The state budget cuts were discussed at the conference and more cuts are coming. Programs: all are experiencing increased participation.

Old Business: Pam reported that at the Public Building Committee meeting the group recapped the feasibility study being placed on hold and the collaborative with recreation being postponed as the town looks at building a new school to replace Gates and moves town offices into the old Gates School. PBC doesn’t think a new school is likely due to the cost. They think a new community center is still a good project to pursue and it will take some additional funds to bring the existing plans up to code.

New Business: Joan Powers attended SSES meeting and they expect more funding cuts resulting in fewer services to seniors. They expect an increase in Meals on Wheels program as state funding cut money for aides who helped seniors in their homes with meal prep. Meg would like to send out an email to her contact list soliciting their help in Meals on Wheels. Florence and Joan will provide a “press release” for her to send out.
St. Mary’s is no longer allowing us to use their parking lot. We will use Cole Parkway and be running shuttles to pick up people who can’t walk to the center from the parking lot. This is particularly a problem in the winter with the ice and snow. Christmas lunch is on 12/22 at noon.
Jim Harmon will set up a coupon box at the COA building to help seniors save money. We ask that everyone who can, drop off your extra coupons already clipped out, at the COA.
Meeting was adjourned at 6:53 PM.

Respectfully submitted,
Rita Rozen