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The Raynham Channel
Council On Aging 07/02/2025
(Episode Description is AI generated and may be errors in accuracy)
The Raynham Council on Aging's September meeting revealed a remarkable financial achievement - the Senior Center had returned over $28,000 to the town's free cash fund after spending only 79% of their allocated budget last fiscal year. This demonstration of fiscal responsibility didn't go unnoticed, with council members expressing relief that good stewardship wasn't penalized with reduced future funding.
A major milestone dominated the meeting - the long-awaited completion of bathroom renovations. After significant delays causing disruption to normal operations, the new facilities were finally ready for use, prompting an open house luncheon to showcase the improvements. The project replaced 25-year-old carpeting with more practical flooring that won't trap moisture or harbor mold, addressing longstanding health and accessibility concerns.
With renovations complete, the center is revitalizing its programming slate for fall. Returning activities include trivia competitions, a singing group, self-defense instruction, and watercolor classes. The calendar is filling with educational presentations covering travel opportunities, Fenway Park history, Medicare plan comparisons, and fire safety. The center continues its commitment to practical assistance through fuel aid application support and Medicare enrollment guidance, with appointments beginning September 9th.
Looking forward, the council discussed plans for Community Day participation on September 28th, featuring their traditional pie baking contest, and began planning a celebration of the Senior Center's 25th anniversary in its current building. This prompted reflections on the site's transformation from its historical use as part of the town's "poor farm" complex to today's vibrant community hub.
These developments highlight the Raynham Senior Center's dual focus on practical resource management and creating meaningful engagement opportunities for local seniors. Whether through careful budgeting, facility improvements, or diverse programming, the center continues evolving to meet the changing needs of Raynham's older adults while honoring its quarter-century legacy of service.
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Good morning. Good morning, this is the September 1st meeting of the Council on Aging. Call the meeting to order at 9.31.
Speaker 2:Madam Director you're taking the roll call. You know when you're ready. Susan's not here. I'm here. I'm sitting right here when.
Speaker 1:I say Susan, she gets offended.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't get offended. But when you say Susan, I'm looking right at you.
Speaker 1:I have a sister, susan. That's why Susan comes naturally to me. She's very sensitive. Treasurer's report. Before we look at the current one, I noticed you have the FY25, which is what ended last July, and it looks like we came in on the budget. Yeah, quite a bit, quite a bit. As a matter of fact, we only spent 79% of the budget. Wow, so we turned in about $28,000. Yeah, turned you to A little over $28,000. Well, I guess, good job, it goes back what Free cash? It goes back to free cash. It goes back to free cash. Yeah, so we had to spend it. We had to spend it downstairs, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know I haven't been around, I wasn't involved in this, but did they ask you to reduce what?
Speaker 1:you looked for this year no.
Speaker 3:That's good. They didn't penalize you for doing a good job, no, which is always a good thing.
Speaker 1:No, I didn't get anything, because sometimes well, not sometimes most of the time no good deed goes unfunny.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, the latest month here. I see a category now that maybe I just haven't noticed in the past. Other properly property related services like what's this? Removal and dispose that the trash, that's trash, okay, and building solutions, yeah, and these are all like the line items if you look at this one. Okay, that's where they come out. That's what that line is. Um, that's cleaning, okay, yeah. What is doing that off? That's cleaning, okay, yeah, what is being?
Speaker 2:at all. That's cleaning James. He's up soon, though I didn't realize it cost us that much to be a part of that. I'm an agent. Wow, it's good to get them money soon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I hope all that money is helping seniors. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay, ready for your question Must be some kind of cleaning. Ready or crushed is the water?
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, all right, I can label it better if you want. No, I just you've told me now and I'll know next time, that's all. I just haven't seen that before that comment, you got the gas off the budget, the gas Now it's still there. It's still there. Yeah, what's that that? Eversource the gas? No, it's still there. Oh, it's still there. Yeah, what's that? The?
Speaker 2:Eversource the 1980. Oh, that's just because we have service even though we don't use it. Yeah, I know. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. No, it doesn't, Mm-hmm, you pay for something we don't have, I mean I don't have gas at my house.
Speaker 1:You don't have gas at my house, but it goes by the building, but we do have a meeting here. Do you remember when they put sewerage in Before?
Speaker 2:they connected to your house. What did you?
Speaker 1:get. You got a bill Now. Mine was a long time ago.
Speaker 2:I got a $2,500 bill the day they sealed the street back up. That was the installation, oh. I understand you didn't give any availability of it?
Speaker 1:No, I understand you shouldn't be giving availability of it. Well it? No, you don't pay because it's available. You pay because you use it. No the $2,500 was because it was there, I hadn't connected to it, I wasn't using the service. Well, that was the assessment. That was the assessment. That's Well, this assessment just goes on forever because it's there and so forth.
Speaker 2:But hey, it is what it is, but you don't use gas in your house, but it's on the street. You have to pay. I don't know that we even have a pipe coming into the place. Well, I don't use gas.
Speaker 1:I don't either, and you don't get a bill. I use gas, so I expect a bill. But we don't have gas in our area.
Speaker 2:There shouldn't be a bill here, because there's no debt. If you think about it, that's $240 a year.
Speaker 1:Well, is it something we should look into? Yes, you said there's a meter there right. Where is it?
Speaker 2:There's a meter. Oh yeah, that's what you're looking for that you can't put a meter there? Oh, I know.
Speaker 1:I'll tell them to take it back. Right, there's a meter there, but there's nothing coming from the meter into the building.
Speaker 3:Somebody set it up 25 years ago.
Speaker 1:Anybody have any questions about this month's or last month's finance, then I'll entertain a motion to accept this discussion. Very, not all in favor.
Speaker 3:So we had a pretty good summer. Activities were a little bit slower due to the renovations. We're hoping they pick back up. We have new things coming back. We have trivia coming back, singing group coming back, self defense and watercolor classes will be starting back in October. We have a few presentations. We have a travel presentation with Colette on September 17th. We have Nancy Frank who does those frankly speaking talks. She's coming to talk about Fenway Park at the end of this month, september 30th. Laurie's also been doing some craft classes. Karen, she's been doing the rock painting.
Speaker 1:Thanks to Cheryl for donating some rocks. Thanks to Cheryl's back we're carrying all the rocks in.
Speaker 2:Yeah all the rocks.
Speaker 3:So she's done two of those over the summer. And then if you look in the newsletter, she's doing a puzzle pumpkin craft thing for September. What else do we have? Today we're having an open house luncheon to come see the new bathrooms and floors. We're back open, come see the bathrooms. So we have that luncheon today. We're showing everybody our toilet station.
Speaker 3:This month's breakfast we're finally having All-American Assisted Living. Come do the waffle bar. Come on, do it. No pancakes this month, but do the waffles. What else do we have? Some other things we're hoping to plan. I talked to Jeff with the fire department. We want to do a falls prevention fire safety class with Jeff, as well as CPR class, looking to do that in October. We have a Medicare presentation which is what's the difference between Medigap plans and Medicare Advantage plans, and that is October 6th at 1, right before enrollment. We're also hosting in October a beer can museum. They come with a pop-up museum and they have arts with beer cans or old beer cans. People are interested in that. There will be no beer, just the museum part of it.
Speaker 2:Also. In October we have District Attorney Tom Quinn coming for the scams talk.
Speaker 3:That got rescheduled from, I believe, july to October. So that's what we rescheduled him for Fuel Assistance is. I went to a meeting last Wednesday for fuel assistance. I have the new applications already, which is usually earlier so I can do new applications as well as all the renewals for oil have been sent out. So if you heat with oil, look for those. Those are coming oil so far. So people have been calling for appointments. Also have open enrollment coming up next month. Laura's working on her schedule and I believe we're taking appointments starting today. No, no, sign up next week. September 9 next Tuesday the sign up yeah, next Tuesday, and they'll all be over the phone. 30 minutes. September 9th, next Tuesday the sign-up yeah, next Tuesday, and I'll be over the phone. 30 minutes for Part D and I believe 45 minutes for Medicare Ventures plans to get as many people in as possible.
Speaker 3:We had a couple trips with Best of Time. We had a trip for the Lobster what was it? Lobsters and Lasts in the Isles of Shoals trip. I haven't gotten great feedback on them. It didn't turn out too great. So I think we're going to hold off on trips, but we're going to continue the dinners and the shows at Lake Pearl that they host, because those seem to be much better than their trips with picking up other centers. And it's a long day. It just wasn't working out too great.
Speaker 3:But I did do a trip through Mohegan. We have wires here, so Mohegan Sun they do a Christmas festival there and there was some interest. So this would just be a bus boom from here. We just need 25 people for it to run what's the cost. I believe it's $65 if you want to do the festival and $35 if you want to just go to Mohegan.
Speaker 1:So he can give you anything like free play or anything like that.
Speaker 2:Not anymore. Thank you, not anymore.
Speaker 1:You know, have you seen what they've done over in East Tottenham? Yet First light. My wife and I stopped in there the other day. It started as a trailer with about 10, 12 machines in there. Now there's 200 machines. It's built and actually put in a building.
Speaker 2:And they added a I would buy at the beginning of the week, and they've added a big, not a tent, but the covering and tables under it. They have food trucks that are going. I happen to see I don't know where Lorraine got the e the website, but she had it on her Facebook page. I was looking at it.
Speaker 1:I happened to see on the news that it had expanded, so we took a ride by there. I haven't seen any construction going on. I don't know if they're building a casino.
Speaker 2:And a trailer. But it's, you know, I guess it's okay, I hear it's jam packed.
Speaker 1:Well, it's all brand new machines. It's right on the street, not in the variety that I like, it's always in the center of things, a lot of penny machines.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's pretty much. It's a lot of money.
Speaker 1:It's a lot of money, it's a lot of money.
Speaker 2:It's a lot of money. It's all slot machines.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just slot machines. I don't know where they stand in terms of their licensing.
Speaker 2:I went with a friend and it was very friendly and very open. They went out of their way.
Speaker 1:We went in there to accommodate my wife with the cane and the umbrella because it was pouring when we went and so forth. They were very good. I'm glad they finally got to do something here. I mean, you know we've done been doing this for a number of years on that whole thing.
Speaker 3:So I'm glad it panned out for them. I hope they do well. How much is the November 7th? It's $65 if you want to do the festival thing. What is the festival thing? It's the 38th Annual New England Christmas Festival with 350 exhibitors you will surely find with their gifts. So I guess they have gifts and stuff, handcrafted gifts, jewelry, clothes, pottery, um treats that you can buy for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, basically, and everything is $35 to get into, I guess, shopping, yeah, shopping. If you don't want to, pretty much, yeah, it's $35 if you just want to go to Mohegan.
Speaker 3:It's 65 if you want to do the festival.
Speaker 2:So 30 dollars is the shopping.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't know why, I don't think they give you free out.
Speaker 1:Usually those things get their money from the exhibitors, not from the people going to see, right yeah, but whatever it is what it is, all right, I'll entertain a motion to accept the directors report. No.
Speaker 3:I needed the motion first. Oh motion, any discussion hearing, any discussion Hearing, none all in favor. Aye, all those in favor. No, okay, I don't have any more Correspondence. No, no, actually I do. I do have some people that are up. I have Peggy, carol and Cheryl. What? No, these are correspondence. You just have to go to the town clerk, if you want to stay on the board. So I guess that's correspondence.
Speaker 1:I guess you're right, alright, take a quick look at the minutes.
Speaker 2:We'll talk about that, if you need to. All right, take a quick look at the minutes. One for you, john, but for the um not for this.
Speaker 3:No, he got one too. We have nine back in the safe area. What kind of places are they working in? We have two here. We have one at Highway, one at Library, one at Town Clerk, one at Board of Health Building and Conservation. None of the police. No, we never run all of them. None of the police. This was the first year Highway took one.
Speaker 1:The guy from Highway filled the holes in the road that goes down, did he? They talked to him about it. He said that he did it temporarily.
Speaker 2:He was going to do a permanent fix to it Instead of just showing the whole. It was the week before we came back over here, of course.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was the week of the last concert there's something else he did for me too.
Speaker 2:I don't know what it was, Alright, everybody have a chance to review it. There's something else you did for me too. I forget what it was, you don't? No? All right, everybody have a chance to review it.
Speaker 1:I'll entertain a motion to accept the minutes of the June 3rd meeting. Motion to accept. Do we have a second Second? Any discussion Hearing none all in favor? Aye, it is unanimous.
Speaker 3:Okay, old business Renovation update All the bathrooms are done, finally, finally.
Speaker 1:So you've got an event to show it off to the world Today. Is there an invitation to go out to the Selectmen by any chance?
Speaker 3:I did call. I tried to call Pat, but I don't know if that's the right number. Okay, I would suggest that you know if we put out some kind of it's today.
Speaker 1:You're saying yeah, they're making a dollar show here. I was going to say an invitation to Town Hall for everybody to come by and see. Maybe we do something at night to it's just the bathroom.
Speaker 2:It's just the bathroom.
Speaker 1:Hey, you know how many years it took us to get that bathroom.
Speaker 2:That's a milestone, but we're actually one bathroom short. There are only two in there now, Before we had three.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but yeah, but I don't know. I'm going to the bathroom. Okay, we've definitely done enough this bathroom bathroom. This bathroom took one quarter of the time that the South Coast rail took, I don't know the answer to that.
Speaker 2:I doubt it. I doubt it. The contract and I don't remember Whoever was there. I don't know, I don't know the answer to that.
Speaker 1:It's history. Now I hope that whatever. Well, it should be redentor, well it should, because you don't want to use them again.
Speaker 2:No, but it should be redentor and if there were penalties they should be assessed Right. Yeah, absolutely, would you ask the question? Yeah, large inconvenience for a whole bunch of people, especially Paula and Erin who were schlepping stuff back and forth to the elves and to the. You know, did we have people that still came to this building though during that time Exercise People that didn't need a bathroom?
Speaker 3:Right, they're only here. They wanted to continue there. The rest of us were over there yeah. Because they're only here for like 45 minutes or so, so they wanted to stay here instead of going downstairs.
Speaker 2:Well it made sense what 45 minutes.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well anyway, it looks very nice. I'm glad we don't have that this humongous thing here in the bathroom anymore. I don't know what uh liz was expecting, but she put that size trash can in the bathroom now we don't know where to put them but anyway, and I I love your choice of the floor yeah, and I love your choice of the floor.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a new floor. I think it's great. It's better than the carpet.
Speaker 1:Well, plus, carpet holds odors and you wash this and it's clean again. It's a very good idea that you should be commending.
Speaker 2:Well, we have so many people walking in from the rain that never dries out, and then it molds.
Speaker 3:So you don't know what you're breathing in, and it was 25 years old. Oh yes, it was more than that right. The floor was good. It was one day. That was it. Is that right? He did what he said yeah he did everything he always wanted to do, wow.
Speaker 1:He did what he said. It wasn't the contractor, was it it? Yeah, that was something we did separately.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they came in on soon as the bathrooms were done. They came in that fall on Wednesday. How many men did that mean that's? A lot of, I think.
Speaker 2:I think policy those three minutes, a lot for that room alone, the front room you would think it's this whole area back to Laurie's office so that room wasn't touched in the front.
Speaker 3:Alright, tell us about the guys where this is where the pocket was.
Speaker 1:Where's all the vegetables? I thought you'd have a pile of them in the middle. The plants are nice outside, so we moved some plants over here, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then they're all on the side over here, but we didn't get very much. You weren't the first year.
Speaker 2:Hey, it was the first year. We didn't get very much.
Speaker 3:I think there's like a pepper over there. That's it. The whole thing was a pepper and there's four eggplants coming in. They're almost done. The tomatoes got eaten by some. It was like this big worm yeah, that was a tomato worm Took a bite out of each one.
Speaker 2:That's why I have the raised beds up on the deck. They want the tomatoes. I don't like tomatoes.
Speaker 3:There's a couple of potatoes. Anyway, was it valid.
Speaker 1:We're actually going to have another meeting.
Speaker 3:There's only like three alumni that have been helping me, so we're going to try to get a meeting in the newsletter for October. I have to talk to them when they can come to start planning now for next year to try to get more.
Speaker 2:But the garden beds are really good.
Speaker 3:They actually hold water, so they always are kind of wet, so you don't have to worry about water in them all weekend or constantly, which is kind of good. Where would all the folks go? People right on the side here. In the back toward the parking lot, so you have to walk, yeah, right down this path.
Speaker 2:When you drive around, if you look down. Yeah, I'll have to look. Just walk into the room.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because it's like seeing them yeah.
Speaker 2:They look like covered wagons.
Speaker 3:I know they have the cover on them to keep the caterpillar things out, but they still got in there somehow.
Speaker 1:So this question about penalties and so forth. Would you say that that's on the old business agenda for next month? No, Next month's meeting? Oh the old business. The question of penalties on's meeting oh the old business. The question of penalties on being late. Yeah, Anybody got anything else on the old business? None, Okay, let's move on. New business Community Day is coming up again, September 28th.
Speaker 3:Yes, we're doing the usual. Looking for pie people. Yes, so pie baking if anybody wants to pie bake, if you know of anybody, I have the forms here that they can fill out and I can send them to Becky at Rave.
Speaker 1:Have you been attending the planning meetings? No, no.
Speaker 3:I haven't been landing on. They've been landing on bad Mondays.
Speaker 2:I'm hoping to go to the next one, but they do know the senior center is going to be open.
Speaker 3:The front room will have the pie baking again and the bake sale. The friends group will have a table out on the lawn, not here. They'll be out like where the majority of the tables are. The friends group will be out there. I'm hoping. I don't know if the meeting's this Monday coming up. I'm hoping to get to the next one, but I haven't been able to make it Monday. I think it's Monday, thursday, thursday's the friends' one.
Speaker 2:Oh, Thursday's the friends' part of the planning yeah, yeah, I'm gonna see if I still have Becky's memo about the next meeting about the next meeting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would have to tell mom. The girls started cheerleading and it's been too much. You're crazy. Yes, we're chillin' You're crazy. That's right, we need to be looking for extra things to do.
Speaker 2:You can do your workouts.
Speaker 3:Is that the?
Speaker 2:pop one Like what is it? Oh, my goodness, oh yeah, what are the meetings for Community Day? Yeah, community Day, alright.
Speaker 1:New programming. You spoke to us in the director's report about that, or is there something else you want to say?
Speaker 3:I think I did it Not much.
Speaker 1:Are you going to this conference, MOCA MCOA sorry, it's supposed to be mcoa not mocha I thought it was a flavorful flavorful conference. Yeah, that's october, october 22nd no-transcript.
Speaker 2:When the place opened, this building opened up. What kind of thing are you thinking of?
Speaker 1:You know, maybe coffee and cookings, and you know vikes.
Speaker 3:Do you want like music?
Speaker 1:Uh, I don't know, I mean, I'm looking for ideas.
Speaker 2:I just think it would be a good idea to celebrate 25 years, and you know, yeah, that's a good idea yeah a cake. I have no imagination See if the singing group will come and sing for us.
Speaker 1:That's a good idea.
Speaker 3:Okay, do that.
Speaker 1:And obviously send invitations to Town Hall and put it in the newsletters on the website, celebrating 25 years of the Rain Seniors here in the building, and you know if there's some highlights, you want to talk about what we've accomplished and so forth. I mean, if you would and I'm sure you all remember, it used to be over on the corner of Carver Street and 138, that was the building where the seniors met Gilmore Mall, gilmore Mall, that's where they used to meet and it was, if memory serves me, right. This building was one of the campaign promises from Gordon Luciano when he ran for they promised him votes if he would get this through. That's right, and he did and they did.
Speaker 2:I don't think we should have speakers. I think it should be very informal, very informal. Yeah, I agree, I'm not looking for anything. I don't plan on making any speeches, just a hello and welcome.
Speaker 1:Are there any old photos that they filled back? I wonder if anybody has any photos of this under construction. I saw the people taking pictures. They're there any old?
Speaker 2:photos they go back to. I don't know if anybody has. I wonder if anybody has any photos of this under construction. There used to be a huge building on this site.
Speaker 1:If you recall, it was the main office of the uh I hate the term, but that's what they call it the poor farm. And uh, I was on parking wreck at the time and there was a lot of talk about cleaning the area. Up there was that building and there was a silo here. Anybody remember the silo that was here? Well, we finally agreed to get rid of the silo because it was falling apart and we were afraid it was going to fall on somebody who killed them on the soccer fields. So the silo went as far as the building.
Speaker 1:There was a group I think it was led by Murray Smith, as a matter of fact who wanted to keep that building as a historic site. So we formed a committee and we went to visit the building, cranked open, busted open the door and the first thing we came to was this huge staircase which was a ramp, because the indentation between the stairs had been filled with pigeon poop. Cut our visit real short because nobody was willing to go up the ramp. But the place was I mean, obviously it had been abandoned for years. Nobody had even been in the building. So you know it was a wreck. So eventually, everyone finally agreed we'd take it all down If you go over to the soccer fields where the snack shack is, you'll see that there's these big, huge blocks that are holding the earth because there's like a hill there. Those blocks were part of that building and some of those blocks are used in other places in the town. I think at the time when we still had a dump, if you would, they used them there as well.
Speaker 2:It was a massive building. Isn't that where they had the haunted house, the? What the haunted house?
Speaker 1:They might have yeah, in the past before the pigeons Way.
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, way back to that, before the pigeons took over.
Speaker 1:They did yeah, so I'm not taking the kids was that was a? That was the administration building. If you will. This was quite a complex in its day. Maybe title, if you get photos from this commission, maybe I'll talk to Dave Donahue because he's a he and I see his name on Facebook and when I get on occasionally, he always has pictures.
Speaker 1:He and I'm trying to think of what the woman's name is who has a lot of pictures Maggie Silva, is it Maggie Silva? Yeah, okay, yeah, I know Maggie's name, but yeah, and we've come a long way Not as far as we'd like to be, but we've come a long way, all right. So we'll put that into the planning there. If you want to talk about it anymore, just let me know.
Speaker 3:Anybody got anything else they want to? What's your Monday schedule? It's Monday, yeah.
Speaker 2:All Mondays. Monday, when you're talking about the meeting that she was talking about Is that it. No, I don't know. Someone was talking about Monday for something, for the community day meeting. Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:They're in the evening 6 o'clock at Town Hall usually.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they could probably do something like on a Wednesday. What's that Like a Wednesday afternoon or something for the 25th? Hopefully, yeah, once they have to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do we? Do.
Speaker 2:We want to do it in the afternoon or the evening because seniors, seniors, doctor, doctor, how about three afternoons like that would?
Speaker 1:require you to stay. You know, we talked about this before. A lot of seniors are still working, yeah.
Speaker 2:People come here Whatever, but when we've Whatever, you think is best. But when we've run things at night, we haven't had as much of a response.
Speaker 1:The night time thing didn't work out too well. It did for the first few weeks, but it fizzled out quickly. All right, fine. Whatever you guys think, it's fine by me, all right, what else? Anything else on the new business?
Speaker 3:I haven't had a brain to think for months. All this heat all summer long just kind of like frazzled my brain.
Speaker 1:Well, you can tell by walking outside, that the summer is gone, that briskness is in the air. All right, no one has anything else. Our next meeting is October 7th. There's a Friends of the Senior Center meeting this Thursday, if memory serves me right. Yes, I believe it's next Thursday. No, next Thursday. Next Thursday. Okay, it was a Thursday close by If there's nothing else I'll entertain a motion to adjourn, motion to adjourn Okay, second, second, okay, all those in favor, aye, and thank you very much.