hi this is bob feldman from belmont media center we're here at the festival the chenery school about to talk to some interesting folks about their situations and roles in belmont how are you very good claire i'm bob feldman from belmont media we're just filming and checking in i love it see how everyone's doing what do you folks do for belmont what is the neighborhood club do were the newcomers and neighbors clubs so it's not just for newcomers it's also for all of our neighbors here in belmont existing neighbors existing neighbors so we're made up of anybody who would like to join us and meet their neighbors in a social environment so we host events once every couple of months and get all of the neighbors together so that they can meet people that they have not been able to meet in the past how many people do you have at any one time in your group we had an event at conley's a couple months ago we had about fifty people who joined us that night and we've got an event coming up in october that we're finalizing and we'll be putting up on our facebook page so you can find us on facebook and see the latest updates that's great sounds like you're doing good things we love it i'm glad and you're smiling and you're happy that's true thank you for talking to us thanks bob hi i'm bob feldman from belmont media what do you folks do we're danbury cross morris what does that mean i don't know what that means it's old english dancing sorry old english dancing old english dancing group particularly a certain kind that's called morris dancing hence the name i got you and are there groups like you all through the united states there are a lot of groups in the boston area a few up in minneapolis they call it new england for a reason morris dancing comes from england we're new england there are a lot of groups around here so these are english groups not irish groups or are they both they're from all over all over europe depends on the style so when's the next time you're dancing publicly around here spring excuse me i think it's in the spring in the spring i have to wait for the spring to go see you the adult team might have enough people to dance tonight at this event but we also jam the children's team might as well but i think this weekend we're doing a performance up in vermont with a whole bunch of other groups right that's a little far to go but okay we'll keep our eyes out for you good luck bob feldman from belmont media and your name priscilla hughes i'm sorry priscilla hughes priscilla hughes and your name elaine digiorvani hi there and tell me about the garden club the the garden club has been around since one thousand nine hundred and thirty we do all kinds of things that we feel are very important for the town we maintain many of the deltas all the trees on concord avenue were bought and purchased by the garden club those flowering trees that bloom in the spring the garden club maintains and plants the garden next to the library which has been a place that everybody enjoys during the summer time sure we give scholarships to both graduates of belmont high and for residents of belmont a couple of years ago we realized that belmont was drawing from a larger community so we decided to revamp our scholarship and give it to anybody who graduated from belmont high regardless of residence and we also of course have a residence scholarship as well and the scholarship is given so that it doesn't affect their financial aid but to go with it we give a four hundred book allowance so that they get a scholarship in essence of about a thousand dollars how many members are there one hundred and thirty five members two of which are honorary eight of which are provisional when you join the garden club the first two years of your membership are provisional and what that means is you try all the different programs that we offer community planting garden club at the manor junior gardeners woodland garden all of the different things that you see listed on that form i'm exhausted just hearing about it they try and then they pick and choose where their membership and we have programs for our members flower arranging this year we were presented with a proclamation by the selectmen for all the work we do in the town of belmont and we are very proud of that that's wonderful it sounds like you do great work we try very hard and it's a club that just enhances the town tremendously for everyone we try very hard to give back to the community because we love it and we want others to find it lovely too well thank you for talking to us and thank you for having a wonderful club and your name is adeen storer how are you adeen i'm great that's great tell me about the belmont cultural council well the belmont gallery of art is on the third floor of the homer building which is one of the government buildings on moore street and we do shows again and again over the year maybe once every two months we've got this music show that's pairing up with porchfest the art is art inspired by music and then we have a special popup fundraiser with african arts like i'm wearing wearing right here right and that's going to be on on september 10th and then the next show coming up is called the emotion of color it's abstract art for abstract artists it should be really interesting to be able to compare very nice looking yeah and we have all kinds of events artists talks concerts some craft making things and stuff like that so if your people check out our website facebook page instagram there's always something new coming up how many people make up the belmont cultural council oh well now the cultural council this is the gallery i don't know how many people make up the cultural council but i know that the gallery the director of the gallery rebecca richards is on the cultural council too sounds good sounds like you do a wonderful thing thank you you come up and visit us i will definitely thank you nice to meet you hi there i'm bob feldman from belmont media hi bob how are you i'm naomi allenburg ducasse and i am in the belmont art association and also part of belmont world film and they're both great organizations and erika hartwick is our treasurer erika hartwick i'm the treasurer of the art association and an artist and you can see my pictures here i'm a printmaker and i was assigned to sit with my team sounds wonderful i like that it's a very talented group once a month people can share their work and we hope to take our meetings to the media center so that we can have them for a larger group of people sounds like a good idea to me tell me you mentioned the film is that part of no i'm just the chair of the board and the founder all crosscultural sharing in belmont we have to collaborate more with the gallery we're going to be having our upcoming show it's an event that the belmont cultural council funded and it's portraits and fabric february 22nd but we're also having a members meeting at the beaumont gallery of art and that will be february i'm sorry i said february i meant september i knew you meant september september 22nd we can see it september 11th we'll be having a members meeting where somebody will be presenting their artwork and that will be at the belmont gallery of art tell me about this fire and rain the fire and the rain is a play all female cast twenty eight casts of characters as you can see over here it's a play or film it's a play likely it's going to be held at belmont town hall theater on saturday 22nd of september and sunday 23rd of september and is being presented by setu setu which stands for stage ensemble theater unit and what we are is a nonprofit group and we get together and we put up plays year after year by and for women no no usually we have we have all men and women as well this play this particular play is all female cast right but anybody can come and see it no no i didn't mean that they're all in english i just meant the presentations are women sometimes they're men and women most of the time they're mixed like the world they do a really thorough job as far as the script as far as rehearsals as far as wardrobe and usually we have like three to four show runs and then sometimes six months later or five months later we'll do a rerun and bring in do an encore this is the encore our original run was already back in april end of april right we had it right we already had it so now we are doing the encore so this is the encore yep two show run hi tom bob feldman belmont media center hello bob how are you good and you are a member of the board of selectmen i'm a member of the board of selectmen and a member of the belmont high school building committee as well tell me in general how the program is going the program is actually going very well at this point so our major milestone coming up on november 6th will be an important town vote where the town will decide whether or not they will choose to support the construction of this new project the committee has been working for the last couple of years in developing a design concept and trying to make sure that we've got a plan that meets the enrollment challenges that we have as a community that take care of the dilapidated or failing infrastructure in town and that meets the educational needs of our students that work has all come together and now we have a schematic design and a plan to put in front of the voters to ask for their support so basically this has to be approved by the townwide voters correct so at this point now the massachusetts school building authority has provided their stamp of approval so we have the eighty million dollars commitment from the state now we have to go to the voters of belmont get their support for the funding that belmont residents must provide and once that's done in november if it's successful we can then begin construction so you're a politician you must have a sense of how the town voters are feeling at this point i think there's a lot of support out there for it i think the town residents recognize the challenge we have of growing student enrollment i think they realize the challenges we have with our aging schools and i think there's an acknowledgement that we need to provide 21st century education experiences for our students so i think there's a lot of support for that i do think the town also is concerned about the cost and the residents have legitimately looking at you know the expense of this building and saying is that the most efficient solution for our community and is this something that the community can afford so i think we're seeing support significant support i think we're also seeing significant concern ultimately from my perspective as a member of the community i think it is the right path forward for belmont i think with one project we actually address a lot of those concerns that i mentioned and i think we do it in the most costeffective way that we can but i acknowledge it's a big number all right and it's you know i grew up in brookline i live in newton now i'm used to the building of high schools renovation of high schools i'm an old real estate developer and so i come at it in a lot of different ways but all towns are facing very similar situations sometimes a little different but in the end the generations of a certain age has to be willing to support the new high school the new grammar schools otherwise the next generation gets cheated and it's a toughy but that's what make america great again thank you and what is your name my name is anne lucier and i am a former business manager at waldorf high school but i live in belmont so i'm here to join the director of admissions i was talking to i'm not from belmont i'm working in belmont and i asked someone who's graduating belmont high school next year cause i saw waldorf high school and the thing i said i think i drive by that it was a big school i said what is it she said i have no idea so tell me about waldorf high school we're a small private school that many people don't know we're here why is that well we're on lexington street as are we and there's st luke's church and we're in the top two floors of the old st luke's school so we're in a classroom setting with a gym and all of that and waldorf education is something that's very prevalent in europe and south america and now increasingly so in china as well as the united states and it's a more holistic approach to education that not just keeping subject separate they really try and weave in a lot as a high school it starts at one thousand one hundred and fifty in the morning which is already an hour and twenty minutes later than belmont high so waldorf high school is not for any one particular kind of student it's for a different approach to high school education that's right would you say we have all sorts of students we do a lot of exchanges where waldorf students come to belmont from other countries and those students go to other countries for six eight weeks how many students attend the high school there are between sixty and seventy five so it's small the most we can have is twenty per grade level because of our facility sounds exciting i used to teach what did you teach i taught at bu law school london school of economics et cetera but i always thought like history is one of my subjects i always thought history is totally taught wrong in this country and it should be interchanged with sociology and archeology well what the students do so for example there's history every day and the first ninety minutes is call the main lesson block and it goes for four weeks and students do a deep dive so they're studying the history but it's incorporating art it's incorporating religion and then they create what's called these they're like a portfolio and they convert their notes into their own book and that reinforces how they learn so we're not big on tests and we're not big on homework but you're big on learning in a new way and a new format yes and i would tell you it's actually an old format it sounds great it really does get into the same colleges i read about that a hundred percent thank you hi i'm bob feldman belmont media hi i'm rich mclaughlin belmont pd nice to meet you sir how is belmont police doing these days doing great you are really indeed got a lot of good people doing a lot of good things that's good to hear crimes under control we do a very good job people are out there and about and they take their job very seriously we've got a great community it seems like and i'm not from belmont but i've been working here about a year and a half and it's sounds it's very expensive it is indeed but i understand what you're saying let me ask you a crazy question climate change does it effect law enforcement at all i know the firefighters say it does i don't know if it really has the i mean obviously when temperatures rise and things like that people get a little less patient every town in the world yes but then you know what i think overall you know i know i dunno if it really doesn't impact us i mean it's where we're fortunate here in new england where we have the change of seasons so if it gets a little warm like it is right now in a little while a couple of weeks we'll be maybe thinking and hoping back to this weather fall is great around here we want three months fall that's all spring also on the beginning but like i said it's a great great community thank you for talking to us have a great night thank you tell me what your name is my name is paul roberts paul roberts bob feldman so tell me tell me what you do at cypress security even though its sort of so i'm the chairman of the it advisory committee or itac and we're actually a venerable committee here in belmont we've been around for i think about twenty years if not more and we are we advise the various town committees including the selectmen the school committee and the library board of trustees all of whom appoint members to our committee but really the other committees in town and really the population as a whole we advise them on matters related to information technology and as everybody knows information technology is really playing a greater role in all of our lives so one of the things that we've done in the last couple of years is to do a series of fireside chats on topics related to technology that we think where we think there's a lot of interest or need in the community for information cybersecurity has been an area where there are in which we really feel like there are a lot of people who a lot of people who need good information about threats that are online protecting their personal information we're doing a talk this fall on fake news and how to spot fake news as well as on artificial intelligence and some of the changes that are coming in our economy and our society with machine learning and artificial intelligence sounds fascinating and these are broadcast where okay so a couple of things so these fireside chats are covered by belmont media center they're at the library usually in the community room at the library and our first one i believe is charlie september 27th tech talks tech talks yes september 27th the first one is september 27th is our first one it will be covered by belmont media center so you'll be able to see it on belmont cable as well as on the website in addition as a committee we record and stream live all of our own committee meetings so we're trying to sort of lead by example by making all of our full committee meetings accessible to the public online and you can find us if you go to youtube and type in itac or belmont itac you'll find our youtube channel and we have recordings of all of our meetings on that and we're working with the selectmen to see if there might be interest in making some of our other committees in belmont actually working with belmont media center as well making some of our committee meetings internet accessible allow people to participate remotely and also make them available online sounds great sounds like you're doing good stuff thank you we're trying to thank you hi i'm bob feldman belmont media good to see you i'm adam dash i'm the chair of the belmont board of selectmen how long have you been on the board adam i've been on the board about a year and a half or so since april of seventeen you're a newbie if you look at it i'm not the newest but i's a newish what is going on in the town that's of any concern to or any troubling issues or just normal well there's a lot going on but i got to say a lot of positive things going on getting our community path moving is the thing we're working on very hard now twenty five years in the making getting that rail trail and then also the underpass alexander avenue to connect you know the windbrook neighborhood to the rest of the town we're moving on that and we got a financial model from umass boston's collins center so we can try to figure out where we need to go financially in this going forward to make sure that we are being fiscally prudent and see if we can prolong the need for novarad as long as possible so i think things are going really well god willing a new high school will be started very soon that is up to the people in november i understand i hope everybody votes i hope to get a good turnout and a have a representative answer in the question yeah okay thank you for your time sir nice to meet you nice to see you have a good night hi i'm bob feldman belmont media center you are i'm harriet walker representing the habitat intergenerational program and you are marion miller from mass out of unhabitat nice to meet you question yeah i do have questions how is climate change affecting umass audubon and belmont or is it i think it is but we're seeing changes in the plant community there are some changes in the animal community ticks might be an example of one thing we're seeing more of that's being attributed to changes in climate it's affecting all the animals i would assume it's a big statement to say all but many of them will be affected by either extreme heat extreme wet extreme cold and conditions that are very changeable so do you do things to try to attenuate changes for the animal habitats or can you or well i'm an educator so i can't speak to the organization as a whole but we do things that are ecologically sound so we have solar panels that help to generate most of the electricity that we use we have a car charging station so people with electric vehicles could be viable in our parking lot and we promote ecological practices to mitigate some of the carbon that's affecting the environment do you do any of the things you're saying you do do you spread any of that material educationwise to absolutely all our education programs have some reference to climate change often it's subtle so when you come and walk our trails you will see over time the evidence of some of the changes our property manager would talk about what we're seeing in terms of changes in invasive species plants and animals that are also affecting the environment so yeah it's part of everything that we do sounds like you're doing a lot of good things here is another good thing ask harriet about some good things so education is a big piece of course of what we try to offer is experiential education for children teenagers adults and seniors to work together and help to look after the sanctuary so they're out in the woods they're helping to maintain the trails they're pruning and trimming and taking out invasive species they're doing all kinds of tasks that are part of looking after our environment and younger the younger you get them out the better off it is the younger you get them out they get to experience the interdependency ingrained in their in their head that they feel such pride and ownership in being able to help do something i see more and more programs like that it's wonderful it's heartening hopefully we can double and triple it every year because it's because of the wonderful carbon emissions that we still have builds awareness and i think doing that from the younger generations is crucial great thank you for your answers and your questions thank you okay so we're here with therese with sustainable belmont it's correct all right can you tell us a little bit about what we're doing here right now so we have a penny poll we have ten pennies for anybody who wants to vote for or to tell us what issues and what environmental issues they think sustainable belmont should be working on this year we have a sign up sheet for our newsletter that comes out once a month we have a list of activities that are coming up in the near future so we have a garden tour on september 8th our next meeting which is going to be september twelve is all about greening your back to school experience so it's for parents it's a kid friendly event for parents of school aged kids we'll be talking about safe routes to school we'll be talking about trash bashers based right here at the chenery we'll be talking about the program to help kids understand reducing greenhouse gas emissions and we'll be talking about reducing plastic waste we also on october 3rd that meeting will be about a roadmap to meeting our climate action plan and belmont has a climate action plan with targets for two thousand and fifty we want to bring those targets in a little bit so that it makes a little more sense and that's about it really and we also are advertising our belmont goals solar belmont drives electric campaigns and just for those who might not have stopped by your table today can you give us just a quick description of what your mission is what you guys do in town i mean i think it's pretty you know self explanatory so we are the environmental organization in town our goal is to help belmont be a sustainable environmentally friendly community we like to partner with other municipal organizations like the dpw and with the vision twenty one implementation committee and you know i'd say that's about it right well thank you so much thank you okay so we're here at the belmont food collaborative and farmer's market table i'm with anne and kim thanks for talking to us guys can we talk a little bit about some of the things that you're promoting today we've got our farmer's market that runs every thursday afternoon through the end of october we're two two to six starting after labor day and we have all kinds of different foods we've got fruits and vegetables and meats and fish and entertainment storytime for kids what else do we have there's more yeah we have music entertainment we have breads and pastries and it's just it's a very congenial atmosphere it's very social and a pleasant place and lots of fresh produce right great local food a nice place to run into neighbors and catch up and so that's a fun thing to do awesome and i went to the farmer's market couple weeks ago it is there's a lots of stuff going on lots of different vendors there anything else in particular that you guys are working on right now well the fungal food collaborative is a five hundred and one c3 nonprofit and we do a lot more than just the farmer's market that was kind of our first project we do a work in food assistance getting fresh produce to people in need some of that work we do through the food pantry making fresh produce available but we also provide benefits to the people who are on the snap program at the market so they can use their snap benefits and we match it so they get up to twenty a week so that's one thing but we also have other jobs opportunity for both the farmers and for the recipients so that everyone wins and that's been a really great opportunity at the market and we have education so we have garden you have a garden at rock meadow one small garden plot where people take turns taking care of it so a family will sign up for a week they'll come two or three times weed water take the produce home so we give them all the instructions they need and meet them there if they want to so it's a fun way to kind of try out the garden and see what's growing and maybe grow something they haven't grown well and is that something that's open to anyone in beaumont open to anyone in belmont they just go sign up for their week and then i send them instructions and then they go so it's a great fun way to get involved and it's hard to get in there right to get a plot there its hard to get your own plot so this is a good way to check it out maybe if you want to get on the waiting list for your own plot or some people have a garden at home that doesn't grow well and it's fun to try out someone else's garden where there's maybe more sun someone else's already planned and stuff so it's a great it's a fun learning opportunity awesome all right well thank you so much for talking to us all right all right so we're here at the yes for belmont table i'm joined with ellen ellen thank you so much for talking to us happy to can you talk a little bit about what you're here to talk to the residents about today absolutely we are talking about the belmont seven to twelve school this is the school that is going to be built to replace a lot of the current high school and it's going to be two schools in one so there'll be a high school wing and a middle school seven to eight wing okay great and what would a yes vote mean if people do vote yes so a yes vote means that we get to build the school the voters are going to be asked whether or not we want to fund the school and it's really important that the town desperately needs it because the school is very old and needs a serious renovation because there is tremendous overcrowding in our schools and this solution solves overcrowding throughout the whole district all six schools so it's a great project a yes vote means we build it we solve our problems great awesome and i'm assuming there's been lots of research obviously that's gone into this and lots of people who are involved with trying to get this through so we appreciate all the hard work there do you want to talk a little bit about what might happen if it doesn't go through so i mean you mentioned that there's been a lot of work the building committee is the group that has done a tremendous amount of work they've been at it for two and a half years we are trying to help communicate and have the conversation with voters to understand why this is so important for the town and why we need to vote for it if we don't pass it then we still have the problems you know we still have to fix the old school we still have to fix overcrowding any other way of fixing it is more expensive we have right now an opportunity with the state they're going to give us an eighty million state grant to build this school if we don't take advantage of it now that goes away because that's their rules and so this is really crucial if we want this eighty million if we want to make it cheaper for belmont residents we got to vote yes now great well thank you so much thanks this is fun okay so we're here at the belmont against racism table i'm here with meg thank you for talking to us do you want to talk a little bit about just what your organization is and what you what you guys do absolutely the president is coming around the corner so she can tell more but this is a group that's been around a long time it started in the seventies in response to some of the race rioting that was going on and the community felt they wanted a way to talk about the discussion and they decided they wanted to work locally to make sure belmont was a place where families of any race religion and any orientation to come and be welcomed in belmont and again there are many issues that we've taken on over the years we work very closely with the schools we support the metco program by providing afterschool transportation so students can stay after school and participate in drama or theater or sports or whatever we're working closely with the schools and brainstorm ideas about making sure that the schools are supported around diversity issues in the school we support all sorts of programming especially discussions around some nice books there's a group called story starters that we support that will help parents talk about race with their kids so we have a wide range of things and we have programming coming up in november about social justice issues or in like the new criminal justice laws so we have plenty of programming that across the board and so you have an event in november is there anything else you are promoting today kathryn do you want to talk about the programming the criminal justice program oh just jumping in oh so the program in november 15th so on november 15th at seven hundred and thirty at the you know unitarian church we're going to have a program on restorative justice and it will include senator will brownsburger it will also include district attorney marion ryan arlington police chief ryan our police chief rich mclaughlin and members of the community for restorative justice and we're going to talk about bringing the restorative justice model to belmont so we hope lots of people could attend it will be very interesting evening great thank you so much you're welcome thank you we're here with ms elizabeth warren she's looking lovely tonight elizabeth thank you so much for being here