By John J. Goglia
After taking the month of August off due to summer activities, the Londonderry Senior Resources Committee (SRC) met on Tuesday, Sept. 21, for their monthly meeting.
Beginning with next month’s meeting, member Sherry Farrell agreed to assume the duties of Secretary for the SRC.
Chairman Rob Palmer led off by saying he was going to try and arrange a committee meeting during daytime hours with the town’s IT person to review the SRC website for format and content.
The committee had previously agreed that some of the website information is still relevant and some is no longer essential. Also there could be additional information that could be added to make the site more useful. The committee also decided that some website information should be moved to the Senior Affairs website and those determinations would be made in conjunction with Cathy Blash the Director of Senior Affairs at the Senior Center and the town IT person.
Palmer advised members that the SRC and other town committees are being audited to determine that all committees are keeping track of attendance, providing proper public notifications of meetings, conducting those public meetings, properly recording and posting agendas and minutes in compliance with all legal requirements.
Palmer reiterated that the SRC will meet the third Tuesday of every month unless the members are advised otherwise in advance.
There was a short discussion on whether future meetings should be video recorded and/or put on the town CTV channel so as to get more input from the community about their concerns or issues that are not currently being addressed by the committee.
Although the last few meetings have been held in the Moose Hill Conference Room due to the pandemic, future meetings may be moved back to the Sunnycrest Room.
A brief discussion was had about the status and titles of the members and alternates currently on the SRC.
It was decided that the Executive Assistant to the Town Manager would be contacted to provide an update of each persons’ title, status and time remaining on their respective appointed terms.
The next Senior Center newsletter will make a request for anyone having an interest in the SRC to express that interest and attend a meeting. The SRC always welcomes any resident of Londonderry to attend a meeting to raise an issue, make a suggestion or just to attend out of curiosity. No further commitment is necessary. There was a suggestion about changing the meeting to a daytime meeting during the week possibly at the Senior Center. Daytime meetings would have to be further explored as they probably would discourage or prevent working citizens from participating and/or attending. Another suggestion offered was to consider having periodic open forums on specific dates and times to generate public interest in the committees’ work and increase community participation.