Meeting Minutes 4/9/2026

 In person meeting at Maine Maritime Museum, Longreach at 3:30.

Attendees: Ruth, Christine, Polly, Deirdra, Marla, Jim, Kelly, Janet, Michele

Minutes Approval February Meeting

Subcommittee Reports

VTP

●      Karin

○      January 1 to March 31, 2026: Woolwich team drove 1580 miles in 66 volunteer hours and fulfilled 81.5 round trips.

○      Arrowsic - 1 round trip for a Bath resident

○      Jen & Marla making alternate plan

○      Drivers needed

○      Gas prices up

○      Recruitment - churches / solid groups

●      Marla, Woolwich program taken to Parkview. Marla has an idea of adaptive equipment

●      Hope is to pack envelopes with tax bills in August for West Bath. to promote such a program.

●      Use different communication channels to get endorsements to speak about the VTPs. Town meeting. Summary of problem, difficulty of some of our neighbors getting to groceries and doctors. Started getting calls right away. How about sharing stories from riders - their testimony? At presentations have a couple minutes to take questions.

●      Can Christine be a Phippsburg representative or connector? Language about best practices to present programs at the town hall, when is the next meeting? Select board Phippsburg meets on Wednesday nights. Marla talked with the Woolwich select board.

Challenge Grant 2025 - smaller grant $2500 to fund listening sessions. Community connections grant $12000 to create the bags and get them out. Very positive, met with each of municipalities. Started with Woolwich. Daniel Evarts, Woolwich EMS was present and was able to answer questions about CERT. Woolwich, did we circle back to participants to make sure they know to pick up their bag?

Phippsburg residents appeared to be the most excited community. Invited Phippsburg CARES to Phippsburg select board meeting.

Georgetown select board asked a lot of questions. Jim was present. Tyler, town administrator, was supportive. Phil, Ashley and Doug were present.

West Bath's select board meeting was focused on high budget of SCEMA, atmosphere not conducive to AFCLK presentation. Increase in budget is significant.

Bath Housing residents' listening session was very positive. They are now organizing themselves to have an emergency phone tree. We'll offer a time for them to connect.

Discussion about how to distribute the emergency go bags among participants of listening sessions. Commit to sharing with one friend. Chief Bath of Bath Police Department has a bunch of bags. Bath Housing listening session took place at the Moorings. Emergency preparedness is much larger than a go bag. We need to reach out to all. Reach out to Bath city council to connect so they hear what we are doing. Share bags. Phil has tutorials for 1/1 RAVE sign up. Bath equity council. What are they planing to do for City of Bath residents' emergency preparedness? CERT on pause because of government funding. AFCLK will attend Bath city council meeting Jun 3, 2026. What is the date they’ll be accepting the budget? People may be upset at the meeting.

Deidra will ask for update on our funds. Guess a couple thousand dollars. Donation to Maine Maritime for use of space, $100.

Extension Community Connections grant - challenge grant for 2026. Focus on funding VTP programs. Gas cards will be helpful. Cards, stamps, envelopes. Clean transparency about how we spend our money. What it takes to run a steering committee. AFCLK applied for grant. Will find out results in May. Deirdra is West Bath town health officer. Let lifelong agencies know we are alive and well and need money.

New Business -

●      MCOG subgroup transportation Sagadahoc. Add macro level of mass transit. Micro does not fit in their plan. We were part of a public transportation survey.

●      Transportation Sagadahoc Subgroup March Meeting- Michele

●      January Lifelong Communities Conference

○      CHANGING THE NARRATIVE: COMMUNITIES IN ACTION ■ June 01, 2026 8:30 - 4:00 Wells Conference Center 131 Munson Road Orono, Maine - link will be in follow up email

○      Met with AARP, they suggested a visioning session. Plan is to meet Thursday, 5/14 at 3:30 at Bath Housing, in a new spot. Can be empowering as a team effort. Noel will run the meeting. Light dinner courtesy of AARP.

○      Lifelong Community Conference

Next meeting date and location: May 14th, 2026- 3:30-4:30 followed by light dinner.

Visioning Session RSVP required. Bath Housing 20 Centre Street Bath, Maine 04530 AFCLK Visioning Session RSVP

Other:

Shredding event. Advertise? Arrowsic, West Bath, at Morse High. Deirdra, Jim, AARP volunteer, Ruth’s husband Don. Shredding is very expensive. Purge any papers with confidential information.