The meeting came to order at 8:37 am. Present were Scott McCaskill, Bruce Gezelman, and Karen Hambleton. Maria Storm was in attendance. The minutes of the previous two meetings were accepted.
No legal review of the BACC deed has been done, but the terms of the deed — “used for school purposes” — may no longer be enforceable. We do agree, though, that the building should be used for activities that benefit the community. Charging for use of the building can help recover costs of operation.
We discussed possible uses for the BACC. An off-campus classroom by New England College has been proposed. The idea of a maker’s space came up. Use as a maker’s space may pose problems with liability, with the danger posed by powerful tools. Also, fitting out as a maker’s space can limit the space to that particular use, and who would fund the initial fit-out? Other kinds of presentations by craft makers might work.
A pre-school and day-care used to operate there, but ran into problems with finding volunteers after 2015. Something like that would be an appropriate use. The current pre-school on West Main Street is running into problems finding staff; the same problem might affect us.
Karen mentioned that there used to be a Community Center Director, initially funded by grants, who ran a number of programs. The position was eliminated when it could no longer be funded.
Discussion turned to the scope of this committee. How much should we do? Should we just evaluate options and make recommendations, leaving actual implementation to another committee? How much research should we do? Should we be contacting New England College or Colby-Sawyer about using the space? Karen suggested we do the legwork and gather information, then report to the Select Board for direction and next steps.
Scott mentioned a correspondence that he had with the CEO of the White Birch Center in Henniker. They get a grant of $65K annually from the Town of Henniker to run their senior program, which is popular. Federal funding is used to help support the child care programs. Each program area has a director, with the CEO overseeing them.
Discussion turned back to how to manage our facilities. Having a part-time Facilities Manager would be an advantage, but the problem is how to pay someone for the position. If funded by an initial grant, then once running, the facilities may be able to generate enough revenue to fund the manager plus some of the upkeep of the facilities.
Who would have oversight? Currently, everything falls to Karen as administrator. She said that she could handle high-level oversight if we had volunteers to help with set-up and clean-up for events. We need to figure out pricing. Kris Foss had worked up a spreadsheet with costs, with notes on how other towns do it; Karen will send out a copy.
Karen gave some quick figures on current rental prices. The building currently costs about $50K per year to run, not counting any long-term maintenance. CAP pays $800 per month for 35 hours per week. Driver’s Ed runs 9 hours per week at roughly $30 per hour.
Town needs to figure out much it wants to subsidize it as a community center. We certainly want to see it used. Bruce noted the number of empty buildings in town; we don’t need another.
There was some discussion of moving the CAP freezers, currently on the lower floor, to the upper floor. Some modification of the building would be necessary; who would pay for it? This led into a discussion of how the lower floor might be returned to its original configuration. Bruce will work on getting more accurate drawings of the current BACC layout.
We got back to who might use the building. We need the Board to give us some guidance. What are the best uses of the BACC? Who should we charge? Our charges need to be in line with those of the surrounding area. Who should use the space for no charge? Where should we look for funding?
Maria Storm spoke about research she had done on how other towns manage stages. Most are managed by their town administrator. Reservations are usually made by viewing an online calendar for availability, then filling out a form, available on line, and submitting it with a payment. Maria estimates that the administrative work normally occupies a few hours a week. Jaffrey has a separate non-profit entity that manages the space, together with a town committee that meets twice a year for long-term direction. Maria has cost structures from the different towns, that she can provide to us by email. Karen described our forms and procedures, which seem similar.
Maria went back to grants, and described the funding sources of the Franklin Opera House, which has grants, sponsorships from local businesses, paid memberships, and money from state charitable foundations.
Karen noted that she is already receiving requests for the use of the Town Hall Theater: Tai Chi, square dancers, a comedy group. She notes that the work involved is not too much, and we already have the appropriate forms, which we use for the BACC. We need to figure out what kinds of events we want to host in the theater.
Maria brought the idea that some theaters have used, of having sponsors pay to have their name on a chair. Karen recalled Mel Pfeifle’s suggestion to rehab the old historic wooden chairs that used to be in the theater, using donated money, and put them back in there. How many are there? (We visited the storage area afterward, and there appear to be at least 150.)
We need to make a list of all the equipment that is needed for the theater. Everything we have now, is borrowed. The need for grants came up again. We will need to have a plan in place before we apply. We also need to resume work on the new web site, which was delayed while the town offices moved.
Maria to send email with information on how different towns manage stages. Bruce to work with Andrew Pinard on fit-up list for theater. Scott to look into grants.
Action Items:
Maria to summarize her research.
Bruce to get AV list from Andrew. (Karen saw Andrew and asked. He’s working on it.)
Send list of use ideas and related equipment to Karen.
Scott to continue grant research.
The meeting adjourned at 9:53 am.
Respectfully submitted, Scott McCaskill