DATE

October 8, 2024

TIME

7:00 PM

 

Agenda 

Item	Owner	TIME
Welcome  Organizational announcements	Ashley	5
New Open Meeting schedule  Next meeting is Tuesday 11/5/24 at 7pm  Starting 12/2/24 at 7pm meetings will be on the first Monday of the month	Dave	5
Member of the Month	Ashley	5
Tree Lighting  Saturday 12/7/24  Ideas for food trucks, activities, and entertainment	All	20
WIFFLE Bowl  Looking to settle where to schedule this in 2025  Possible combination with Summer Night Lights	All	20
Pancake Breakfast  DFF is rebooting this classic with the blessing of Kiwanis  Possibly in early-mid March on a Sat morning	Rebecca	20
Bonfire  Saturday 1/11/25  Discussion if time allows, can pick up at the next meeting if not.	All	5
Open	All	10

 

Attendees  

Board Members – Rebecca Froncki, Jocelyn Marchand, David Pabisz, Ashley Bivens 

Community Members – Mike Trainor, Melanie Little, Lisa Cole, Amy West, Bob DiPietro, Jenn Corsino, Barbara McNasby, Joni Pesola, Donna Cavalleri (new), Gino Cavalleri (new) 

 

Minutes 

Respectfully submitted by David Pabisz 

 

Welcome – Ashley 

• Welcome any new volunteers, visitors, ..etc. 

• Announced Amy Ciancarelli’s retirement from the board and noted that Ashley Bivens is the Interim President now. 

 

WIFFLE Bowl 

• Feedback 

• • Teams coming to register didn’t quite know where to go 

• • We had ice cream leftover 

• • September was rough trying to find teams and volunteers.  It’s a very busy time of year. 

• • Was too bad that by the time the champs won there was almost nobody left around at the event. 

• Financials. We ended up with this costing us about $500 for the entire event.  Not too bad considering we had to cut the teams back to 16. 

• Scheduling for next year 

• • Can’t place it between Rewind and SNL 

• • Possibly do ice cream late morning, then food trucks move in (same day as SNL) 

• • Having both WIFFLE Bowl and SNL on the same day is a really really long day. 

• • We can’t do it in the fall again 

• • What about a “homecoming weekend” style thing.  Do WIFFLE Bowl on Saturday and then SNL on Sunday?  Maybe add some things  like Town BBQ, .. around WIFFLE Bowl. 

• • Could separate the ice cream from the WIFFLE Bowl 

• • Volunteer availability is a concern in both scenarios; one long day vs 2 back to back days 

• • What about end of April?  Night before baseball parades.  April vacation is 4/20/25 – 4/25/25.  Is SJP available? 

 

Member of the Month 

• Amy West is this month’s Member of the Month 

Tree Lighting 

• Last year we had our first ever Holiday Parade with it and we’re doing it again. 

• Street closes at 2:30pm 

• Will increase parade size to 15 cars/floats (maybe 20).  Slowly growing it to keep it manageable. 

• We might have dancers as part of the parade instead of a fixed display 

• The Town puts up a banner to advertise the Tree Lighting 

• Kids activities 

• • Card making station 

• • Stuff-a-Falcon (holiday edition) 

• • Elf Toss 

• • Reindeer Food making station 

• Novelties to sell, some glow stuff left over from SNL? 

• Small simple set of food trucks, trying not to compete with local restaurants 

• We would like to secure a source of hot chocolate 

• • Get a local business to do it?  Dunks or McDonalds or Rebel, Daily Harvest 

• • Or DFF does it ourselves? 

• Need to figure out a staging area for the parade vehicles 

• • Maybe use North Putnam just like the baseball parade? 

 

Pancake Breakfast 

• Kiwanis has asked us to take this over.  Traditionally happened in March at DHS. 

• Looking at dates. 

• In the past all the food, equipment was donated by local businesses 

• First ½ of March on a weekend 

• We would have raffle baskets 

• Better than comedy night, appeals to a wider audience, families 

• Kiwanis will help us get going 

 

Bonfire 

• 1/11/25 

• Food trucks 

• Last year it was wet and DPW was scrambling for more dry trees to get it going 

• • DPW suggested getting some pallets as a base for the fire 

• • Northeast Nursery might have these for free 

 

Accommodations for kids with sensory needs 

• Jenn Corsino is helping DFF incorporate sensory needs into our events 

• Northeast ARC is really the only local org that has resources, but they are likely to be overburdened 

• Companies that work in ear protection, headphones 

• • Bose is local 

• Tree Lighting might be difficult because parade is a moving target 

• • One concern are children bolting, need an enclosed area 

• • Could we ask a business that might usually be closed at the time to use their space as a sensory safe area to watch or decompress? 

• Bonfire 

• • Find area away from DJ noise 

 

Misc 

• Band for next Summer Night Lights.  Looking for ideas. 

 

Upcoming confirmed event calendar 

• Tree Lighting – 12/7/24 

• Bonfire – 1/11/25 

• Downtown Rewind – 6/24/25 

• Summer Night Lights – 8/10/25 

 

Next Meeting – 11/05/24 at 7p at the Danvers Fire Headquarters