Order. All right. So first we're going to start with roll call. But before I turn it over, I just want to remind everybody I had the pleasure of listening to the meeting in video last time because I wasn't here. And even if your mic is on, you need to lean forward or pull the mic in because it was very hard to hear even with loud voices like it. I couldn't hear you when you were just sitting back. So it's just the mic. So everybody just remember to pull those mics in and talk into them so we can hear. It's hard because we can all usually hear each other, but the cameras aren't picking up. So it's hard to remember. It's a little difficult. Okay, so first we'll have roll call. Thanks, I'll just acknowledge who's here. Christian, our chair. Devons here. Azir. Yes. Jane? And Gib. So we have a quorum. We can move forward. Excellent. So first we're going to go into the public comment section. And I believe we have one guest here to speak today or two. Three. Okay, awesome. So each of you will have three minutes to speak at the podium to talk and address the the board and or the committee. Excuse me and Excellent Is this the mic? This one. The green. Yeah. Hello, my name is Ron Chaffee. I'm president of arts on the Creek. Arts on the Creek started the first arts festival in John's Creek in 2008 and ran it for six years before the city established the John Creek Art Festival and we grew it from approximately 200 people to 20,000 and that's basically the same type of festival we have now. It was an all-volunteer effort. I also used to being in this room because I served on the previous arts and culture board for six or eight years and a finished advice chair. So obviously very involved in promoting the arts in John's Creek. This year, what we've been doing is arts on the Creek is we have been hosting four boots provided by the city of high school students, artwork. And this year we expanded to include a book fest. And you're going to hear some more information about the book fest and a concept of we're thinking about would work in John's Creek in a much expanded venue and method from my wife and the Arts on the Creek Treasure Kathy Chaffee Desjardins. Okay. So I'm glad that Ron got a lot of my little speech out of the way, so I'm sure I can get in and under three minutes. So while Ron was working on Arts on the Creek, I was getting real involved in the book community in Atlanta, primarily Roswell and Alpharetta. And so since 2015, I have worked to bring to Roswell authors such as Rick Bragg and Patchett, Deelia Owens, Geraldine Brooks. That's two Pulitzer Prize winners, one Pulitzer finalist, and the author of Where the Craw Dad's Sing, one and the author of where the crowd is saying one of the best selling books of all time. So that's Roswell. And Alfreda in Tuesday, this Tuesday, and you're all invited. We're bringing Mary K Andrews and Patty Callahan Henry. And those are two New York Times best selling authors. Really big deals. On Facebook, they have a friends and fiction Facebook group with over 100,000 followers. So that's Alpharetta. So it occurred to me in the last year or so that I spent a whole lot of time promoting Alpharetta and Roswell, and it was about time that I focused on my own city. So I would, you know, love nothing more than to bring the connections and experience I've been accumulating during this time to John's Creek and a book festival here. And another thing that I do and a book festival here. And another thing that I do when we work on these big events is I write about them for print and online newspapers, bringing more attention to Roswell and Alpharetta. So it's just an opportunity I feel that would be great to bring to John's Creek. So as Ron mentioned, we had a mini book fest at the John's Creek Arts Festival and my impression was if we did something like that again, it was tremendously popular. We had hourly slots that sold out in no time with authors around Eurana. So my impression was if we did this again, we would have a standalone festival, a lot like the Decatur Book Festival. And does that mean it's over? Okay. And so the Decatur Book Festival, it's the impression the last couple of years has changed so much that it might be in decline. All of which is to say, this could be the best possible time to create a book festival here in Johns Creek. So I look forward to hearing what you think and I thank Stacey and Joan and Neil for their support. Thank you all. You're welcome. Thank you. Hi, I'm Joan Compton and today, well, first of all, I'd say, well, I think this book festival is a great idea. I'd also like to say that the Holly Jolly Black Party was a lot of fun. And you can see the tree all the way coming up, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I think that's where I live. All the way up the road I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I that Fulton County provides. The last two years it's been 2.3 million. We don't know, we won't know until January exactly what it is, but we're assuming it's going to be something similar. And that funding is used to fund either projects or operations of organizations for nonprofit organizations, artists and municipalities. Some examples of what people and organizations have gotten around here in the past year. The Junkric Symphony got $20,000. We're talking about nice money for a nonprofit. Auditory Mill got $4,000, Lannifestival Academy. That's William Poo academy, 5,000, John's Creek Arts Center, 200,000. And then as far as cities, and that's just a few, there are others that have applied as well, and been funded like beautification John's Creek. But Ross will got 15,600, half the old 10,000, Alfforetta 15,000, College Park 15,000, Milton Arts Council 4500, so it's, Stacy, it's worth looking into. But you got to hurry. The deadline is December 21st. If you want to apply, you need to look at, you can just Google, John's Creek Arts Alliance. There's information there, or you can go directly to the Fulton County Arts and Culture Department online and that's FultonArts.org. All the information is there. You do need to attend an online workshop if you haven't applied before. And there's one more December 13th. So anyway, I just wanted you to all know that deadlines coming up, there's a lot of money out there that Fulton County loves to fund the arts, and they're known for funding the arts. In fact, they're the biggest arts funder in all of Georgia. So I hope some more organizations and artists will apply. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you so much. We'll go ahead and move into reports and that's what we just did was report some presentations. So the reports from the city we don't have any tonight correct. Okay, so then we'll move into the new business and the first item for new business is to approve the minutes from the November 3rd meeting. Do I have a motion to approve? Len, are you motion to approve? Okay, do I have a motion to approve? Len, are you motion to approve? Okay. Do I have a second? Second. Excellent. All right. With the motion to approve and the second, all that are in favor say aye. All right. Aye. Any nays? All right. The minutes have been approved. All right, the minutes have been approved. And the second item that we have is adoption of the 2023 meeting calendar. It is in your packet in front of you. And I just want to remind you that this is not setting John's Creek or committing into a firm grasp. This is what it is and it can't change. This is just to let the city know so that they can do some planning as well around what we're doing in here. So do I have a motion to approve the calendar? Okay. Second, third, things of the month. There's a few that had to move. If you want to take a minute to take a look. Christian, can you do Thursdays? I can do Thursdays. I was talking earlier. It's once a month I can do. Yes. Oh, perfect. Yeah, it was, I wasn't prepared last month to tell them on the moments notice. All good. February had to move. I'm out of town the second first. Yes, you can always vote to move a meeting. We can call special called meetings. We can cancel meetings if there's no business. It just benefits the city to be able to publish this for transparency sake on the front end. So. What about the time of the meeting? Does that have to stay at six o'clock? Because it seems like if it was maybe seven, it'd be easier for people to be here maybe Yeah, it's taken me an hour and 20 minutes tonight to get here from Stone Mountain. Wow Sorry, I thought I was gonna make it but um, yeah if um 630 would be great if that's not too late for you all 630 is fine 630 I'm good with 630 is fine with me. 630? I'm good with 630. Okay. All right. So motion to approve 630, a change to the calendar, 630. So that meeting will run 630 to 730 just to make sure that we're running up to 730. Okay. Do I have a second? Second. All right. All in favor? Aye. All opposed. All right. Calendar has been approved. Thank you. All in favor? All opposed? All opposed? All right. Calendar has been approved. Thank you. And the next event is the 2023 events calendar on the back side of what you were just looking at for our meeting is a calendar of events that was put together for us. I don't think this is the first time we've seen it. It was in the meeting last month and the month before. So can I just ask quickly, was there anything added in the recent onto this calendar that we should be aware of? No, so the conversation around the calendar is, this is informational for you because what this conversation really needs to be is a brainstorm of the committee of what you want to add to this calendar. So the ACE Committee's one of our roles is to recommend to council any new events, whether it be a book festival that they just mentioned or in the case of Lunar New Year and Daffodil Days, which they just approved. Is there anything else you want to suggest? Look at the calendar and do we have any holes? Do we need something to kick off summer? Do we need something in the fall? That's for you, are we going to do Diwali Festival again? And when should we look at doing that? Diwali falls on November 12th this year, or this year, 2023. So that would push us into November 11th this Saturday before for the Wally Festival. That's veteran today. So maybe we want to go up to November 4th. But that is a decision for Yalta to make. So that's really what this conversation is about, is just seeing, I know there's a lot of colors on this calendar. It's kind of hard to see like, oh, but that's a council meeting, where's the events? So what I'm hoping to happen now is we brainstorm some ideas. And once we set on them, which in January, we can kind of narrow in on, okay, this is actually what we want to recommend to council. Then I will get with our Parks and Recreation team and look at their calendar, make sure we're not overlapping. And then that full calendar will go to council at the end of February. So then in February we'll have the final full calendar. And then council will approve that moving forward, which kind of backing up explains why I had to go before them last month with daffodil days in lunar new year since they happened before then. So we had to go ahead and get those approved. So really this is just kind of an open mic, you know, throw out some ideas. What do you think? What would you like to see here in the city, whether they're culturally related or just for the whole community or whatever they may be? Yeah, good. What about a day like a day of excellence or some type of award for the community? Maybe not brought up by the city, but brought up by the community, maybe not brought up by the city, but brought up by the community, where you could, you know, recognize somebody for something that they did. I mean, generally, it's like Eagle Scouts or something like that, but even, I don't know, a cancer survivor, or somebody that was a hero in the community or something like that. I don't know, but I wouldn't think it would be very expensive to do. I don't know much about it, but I think it might be a nice way for the community to award each other or something. Yeah. Would it be for more than one person, like at a time, or each year, would there be someone different? Or you tell me? Yeah, or even multiple people. You could award several different people and let the father make a speech for the son or something really rare like my teenage son awarding me something. I'm kidding, bad jokes. Sorry, he loves me. But whoever, yeah, just and maybe coming from the public instead of coming from the city or the county, nothing against them, but just an idea. I like the idea that I do and I would like to see us if we were to act on that or move on it. It would be, forgive me. Okay. But perhaps we could include law enforcement and fire. The opportunity to recognize them, we just do it all together. I don't accept that. Absolutely, yeah. I think we need to check in with leadership, John's Creek, because I believe they have a day. Don't they heroes for a day? Does anybody remember? I don't know if that has gone by the wayside, but maybe we can check in with them just to make sure we either can expand on what they're doing or not or change what we have in mind based on what's already being done. I'm sorry Lynn, what was that organization name? Leadership John's Creek. Leadership John's Creek. Or if they've stopped doing it. Revive it. They may have. Including first responders, those are great ideas. That's yeah, for sure. Yeah, because it gives an opportunity for the community to interface with the people. Exactly. That's a great idea. Take care of us. Yeah. I do have a question. Do, with Lunar New Year and Daffodil days, being approved. Does that something that we have to go back annually for approval? Is there a way to get it just on the calendar and same for Diwali. Yes, council approves the calendar every year. Okay. So they're just some that are just like MLK, Labor Day, Veterans because. Well, those are on. Federal. Yeah, those are federal holidays that we recognize. So what we're looking at is events around, maybe around some of those holidays, but the actual events have to be added to the calendar year. And parks and rec, they generally do the same thing every year, but they still have to present it and get counsel to approve it. So it's the same. It doesn't mean that every year we have to brainstorm, but it actually gives us an opportunity every year to go. Maybe that wasn't awesome. Maybe we should try something different. Or hey, let's add something, you know, whatever. And then it just gives an opportunity to revisit the calendar. The value was so successful. Holly Jolly Blot party was successful. And then I would like us to revisit Juneteenth. I think that's, I think that's a good opportunity for us. Agreed. Is there a calendar? I know that other groups have big citywide days. For example, John's Creek beautification has the garden tour the first weekend of May. So it seems to me that if we also know if there are other big events happening in the city sponsored by other groups that we should have a calendar of that so we can space it all out. Yes. That's a great idea. I reached out to a lot of those groups, the ones I know about. You had mentioned that a few months ago and I reached out to them and said, hey, if it's not on our calendar on our website, we aren't going to know about it. And I sent them all the email to, so they could submit it to our community calendar, which is just a great resource anyway. So, I get that would be the only way we would know. But certainly, if you know of an organization that has an event coming up. One, we wanted on our calendar, on our community calendar, and then we want to know about it for the same reason. So yeah, that would be a great action item for the next, by the time we get together again, in January to reach out to the organizations that you're aware of and say, hey, what, where's your, what is it that you're doing? When you're big events, we don't want to overlap them that would that would be or partner with them Just to make sure it's great Really included and put forward. I have a quick question. Does the city follow the federal holiday calendar like do you observe all the federal holidays that are put for? Not all of them we have what are their nine or ten council approves them right? Every year, so no, they're listed on your calendar. Right, no, I was looking at that. And I do know Juneteenth was recently made a federal holiday. I mean, there's a federal holiday, the city, as a city we don't recognize it. We don't, we have to work. Right. That's June 16th, 19th, 19th. Okay. And then for this recognition day, I was thinking I wanted to throw in maybe think about Labor Day. That's a day that you, it's a good idea. You know, honor people that are working. That's what it's for. That's what it was started. So recognizing people, using that day to recognize people would bring a double meaning to that. Also become a big day for vacation. That is true. Yes, people are gone. So, you know. But certainly around that time. I mean, that's up to you guys. Yeah, Monday, or do it the, you know, on that weekend. Yeah, September 2nd. So it's sort of, it's close to 4th of July as well then right? Do you need this? Yeah, it is. Someone mentioned us maybe I think it was the first meeting we had. There was a conversation about us doing like a series of events leading up to July 4th. And I don't remember who raised it. I just remember somebody mentioning it. That sounds cool. So that's a thought. I would also, I like events where people have to go around the city. Because I think it's, there are people that don't go to other parts of the city. We just all tend to stay in our own little nook. There are some counties that I know that have arts. Anybody who's an artist, a lot of people have their studios in their homes. But they all get put on a map and then you can drive around to the different homes and people sell things out of their house and have demonstrations. But that's just an arts aspect to it. Is there another kind of event that we could get people moving about our city? And you know, like a great, I want to say I was like a scavenger hunt around the city like we talked about for daffodil days because that gets people around and seeing places and businesses that they don't normally see. Food is an easy way to do that. Yeah, bring them by food. That's why I was thinking a map would help because being able to identify, excuse me, being able to identify where certain locations are, you know, in relativity to the city so that we can look and say, okay, let's try to do something in the southeast corner of John's Creek. And then we got, this would be more of like the Northern, northeastern part of John's Creek. Do something into it. So they just mentioned the book festival. And I'm just thinking about that is something that could get people around the city. If you had an author at the John's Creek bookstore and you had an author at this restaurant and you had an author the right this restaurant and you had another and so and I love the idea of a studio tour I think that's so cool but that would be one way to get people to move around the city and have I like the idea of I like it map kind of idea. Yeah, so we can mark on the map where are the artists are and where are their studios? Is it the studio art and books? Two different I don't They have to one or the other okay, but I think that would be really cool to alternate Do you know what I mean? So that you're offering different things on different, you know, if you did art one year, you do books the next year or just to try to change it up. And I, yes. And so then you're saying if we do the book festival, let's get a map and make sure we have authors speaking at different places. Even if it could be, we to the game bookstore at this part, but maybe it's a restaurant at a different part of town that doesn't have a bookstore or a business that would open their lobby or something like that, just so we move people around. And if we tie it to QR codes, everybody checks in. Perhaps we could have a prize for the people who are the person who is able to hit most or all of the spots. They unlock something for each location they visit. That's fun. Is there a way to tie the books to different multi-different cultures? That we could do books, you know, it could be a tie-in. What time of the year was this being put forth for? We have it. No, that has come out yet. Is anyone about June 10th? There's so many interesting books that are out there and just don't know if you could tie that together somehow too. It could be a matter of just identifying authors in different cultures that would be able to provide. So it sounds like it would have to be something that goes over the course of a week or two, because you certainly would be tough to put that in a day. In a day, that's true. It may be make it like a freedom, a week or a dollar, where you could write or something, or it would be pretty tough to do that all of one day. True, you'd be listening to a lot of talks. Yeah. It's a good point. I think that we should also consult Mrs. Choffe since she was going to present the idea. I'm sure she has access to all that information. All of the authors. Yeah. All of that information. Yeah. So would we just make it the book festival? I mean, is that something that they do? And I was hoping they were going to say our questions. So I didn't see them slip out. But the whole idea is it they bring the authors and their books. I don't quite get what it is. Whatever you want it to be. Sure. So yeah, I mean, that's what it is. They don't they don't have a book festival in a box like you think your book fair, your school, that shows up at your school library. One cares what they do in Roswell. What do they do in Roswell? Yeah, I don't know. Are they totally different? I don't know that it's a festival per se in Roswell enough for it. Sounds like it's a few authors that come in talk. Right. And so I know her vision just because she shared it with me for John's Creek is much grander, but this is our first year we can start small and grow it, but it's whatever you want. We can make it whatever you want. We're not bound to buy it. But about like a monthly symposium where you bring different authors of one genre, genre, excuse me, and just have them on a panel and they're talking about a certain topic, things in the books that they wrote, you know, deal with a certain topic and you could do that literally every month. There's something that's being marked. I mean every day we have a national hot dog day, national dog day, national this day. Are you able to share with us what you said that she shared her vision? I mean that was, or I missed, oh, oh, oh, she miss. This is trophy said that she shared here that the Decatur Book Festival is her kind of vision. If you've ever been a part of that, I looked it up. There's 80,000 people go to that. I don't know that we can't even accommodate all that here. But so she's looking for that. It would be a festival with, you know, on one part of a day with tents and there's authors and people selling books. And then you've got local authors. And then you've got she threw out some pretty hefty names while she was talking. And those people giving talks or signings or, you know, whatever, all all of that but it can be whatever Whatever jumps Creek ace community. Can we maybe ask Kathy to come back to talk to her? I mean we could reach out individually, but it would be good to have her come back So that if we have questions we can talk to her. Yeah, like whether it's a one day kind of festival or is a week or yeah. So we don't know what the paper is several days. But here are John's Greekits, whatever you want. You guys create it. You tell me and I'll make it happen. Well, council will approve it. One way to get youth more involved is there's so much good young adult literature out there now and one thing I know from dealing with my kids and young adult literature, especially fantasy literature, is that it's so much more multicultural now than it used to be. Everything fantasy used to be based on the Lord of the Rings, you know, English history and it's not now. There's some really amazing authors that you're seeing that are getting widely sold that are African authors that are Chinese. I mean, I've seen so many interesting ones. So I wonder whether it would be good to do a day aimed at youth and see if we can't get some authors in. To go on with the high school. She used to do slam poetry, competition, and I think that they that might be a way to what is slam poetry. Yeah. It is mashing up reciting poetry with drama, hip hop, rap. I mean, it's performance art in poetry. Yeah. Yeah. I remember River Cho Middle performance art in poetry. Yeah. Yeah, I remember River Trail Middle School has done that. And I believe my son won. I don't know whether it's the first or second place. Yeah, yeah. It was pretty fun. He really put hard into the poem that he wrote. And then, yeah. Wow. And what's nice about doing, I bet there's like a graphic novel society or that there's a slam poetry society and those people are, they could organize that aspect of it. So basically, we can have the book one or whatever poetry, whatever for use. Right? Young people, one idea and then the general one? I don't know. So what do we think about it being one week or one day, one weekend, or do we want to entertain the idea of asking for a month and one of the months could be for teens. I'm concerned when you have something new that when you spread it over too long of a period of time it loses its continuity and people forget about it. I agree with that. So if it's the first time, let's just start small. Yeah. To me, it might be better to start like a couple of days or two days. And then if you want to do it monthly, then at least say, have some reference to, oh, I did this before. But people will forget about it from January February, no month to month, I'll just forget. Except those that are really into literature and poetry. And it would be nice to have somebody do a workshop for people who want to be authors. That would be great. So I'm seeing it as like a two day event in my mind then a day of workshops and things like that to get writers that are out there that want to show and express that and then the second day being the ones that are recognized that you know have writings out there that they want to bring. But to your point about doing something over the course of a month what we could do is a series of weekends like that. So we do the book thing and then maybe we do the art studio thing one weekend and something else. But on another note, I would like us to maybe think about, I'm just trying to be efficient. I'm not efficient. OK. I would like first to maybe think about doing something for suicide prevention. Or we're doing a lot of fun things but maybe like a community initiative where we're thinking about our elders those are in the assisted living facilities and then something to give our attention and hearts to the kids. Do you have the will to And then while they do a big concert at Northview, and the kids come in, and it's like a big festival, basically. Is that just Northview students? Or I think it's open to people. No, I think it's open to people. All students open. It's just usually at Northview, but yeah, that I'm aware. What, when is that? It's in the fall. Right? In the September I believe. Yeah, Wilfestival. Yeah. And then the 5K is in February. Is that correct? Is it? I was thinking it was the same weekend. It's been a few years now. So it's okay. So at minimum, we should at least show that on the calendar. So people that are looking online see, hey, the Wilfestival is this month or when it is. And can give support it. and can give support it. I love the idea of honoring the elders in the community some way. Yes. I really like that. I think it's important. People, you get busy, you know, the children of elders, you get busy, they can't always visit. Sometimes they live out of state, you know, and it would be good opportunity to visit with them, maybe give them fruit or whatever. Just something. Have the kids come and sing? I know it's not a large scale thing, you know, but it's community-based. I don't think everything has to be a large thing. I like the idea of having several large festivals, summer weekends, summer, and really trying to spread it out over all the age groups. So just to recap what we talked about, what you'll talk about, for ideas, you talked about a day of excellence where it sounds like a community nominated celebration, community nominated heroes. And then we talked about, you mentioned June 10th. We didn't really flush that out at all. And then we mentioned an art studio tour or book tour or something over the course of months, once a month, a couple of times a month, whatever. So there's, so those are some broad ideas, which was the goal for this conversation. I want to focus just for a second on the W Festival and is that something we want to do in 2023? Definitely, yeah. Okay. It was. The question is where? Look, yeah, wherever you're doing parking. Yes, it will be in a different location. But here was my thought on that. We had the Wally Festival at a pretty obscure park that is tucked away, I think pretty hard to find, and people found us, which I think is awesome. So what date do we think is best? I'm thinking November 4th is the optimal date for that because November 11th, like I said, is Veterans Day. So that actually pushes us out of October, the Super Busy Festival season, and then we're in early November, but not too late, or it's gold. It might be better for the community anyway, because year the festival was actually on the day before right so they were doing family events so maybe this That's it less less of an impetus to hurry up and get home after yeah So just November 4th seem to work The next valley festival the next valley festival. Okay. Do we need to check with the folks what the dates for the next valley? It's November 12. Oh, okay. It's pretty close. Yeah. I think that 12 is a Sunday and then 11th is a Saturday and that's better in stay. So she was asked that's why she was asking to back it up to the fourth. Perfect. Was Davidell Day selected the time period for that event? Yes, we're getting to that. Okay. I'm just looking at the whole list. Sorry. Well, that hasn't been added to this. Yeah, this this calendar doesn't have events on it. But yes, definitely is this March 19th of the 25th. I'll get into that and just open it. So is there any other events you want to consider? Is there a summer kickoff Memorial Day-ish picnic? Or we talked about the book festival. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. or we talked about the book festival. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Should talk about June, June, June, March. Yeah, yeah, let's see. The same thing. The same thing. The fact that he is like a bumpy picnic is a thought, but what other stuff? Well, choirs, as a tree. You know, choirs, as in tree, you know, outside park, thinking not necessarily concert, but you want to have music and you want to have people from other cultures who would like to participate as well, because it is about freedom and it is about celebration and it is about the culmination of togetherness. I always like to tell people that's the moment where we got we finished the work. You know slavery was abolished but not everybody got the memo. So when we get to that moment that's where it's done and you know I think it would be just a great opportunity for us. We are the most diversity in the state and so when I was saying earlier that it would be just a great opportunity for us. We are the most diversity in the state. And so when I was saying earlier that it would be a great opportunity for us, I'm thinking about all that we have in terms of our diversity, the way that we get along, the way that we respect each other, the way that we show up for the community, whether it's the volleyball, whether it's Lunar, New Year, whether it's Daffodil days, the things that we do for kids. That's our culture. We are known for, we are going to become known for the ways that we interact and interface together. And so I just think Juneteenth has to be a part of that. Yeah. You know? So I'm open to ideas. I do have some. I don't know. I love this singing and I love the picnic aspect and having people come and bring family picnics and yeah, concerts. Yeah, concerts. Yeah, concerts for different. Definitely. I think that also sounds wonderful. I mean, we could combine it with a, I mean, it's possible maybe on the same weekend. That would be an opportunity to bring in an author too. And not a do-of-the-talk. I know it would be a talk if we did it on, it would be June 3rd, I'd say it's a Monday. So it would be the 17th and 18th, I guess. Is that open? Is that also a appropriate day for the Nationalization, you know, the Saramot? We talked, we were hooking something to win the ceremony. The naturalization ceremony when people became a citizen is what were we linking that to? Do you remember? I don't remember that either. Not to say that we didn't because I have a bad memory. I don't think so because it like you said it's a weekday so probably the weekend before people have it off now, but Maybe even have clergy people from different backgrounds to speak and participate from different backgrounds to speak and participate. Art, of course. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, this is a great idea. Painless. Didn't the art festival art, was it a couple of years ago, had a Juneteenth art exhibit? Did they? Yes, I think that's right. Yeah, so we need to incorporate them. Yeah. Yeah, I agree But I do like the concert of different bands, you know, especially from like school children They have bands. They have orchestra or whatever They can select their music and percent in you know they can select their music and percent in, you know, juntaans. Yeah, I think it would be great. Do we have any churches in John's Creek area that anybody knows of that has, like, gospel choir? There is a black church in John's Creek. Okay. So, Alpharetta, Roswell, and I've spoken to community members in those cities, and they're excited at the possibility of all of North Fulton getting together and doing something really big for Juneteenth. And I'd like to see a screen. We're able to be that gateway for a Fulton. Can we present at the Fulton and say, hey, we want to not sponsor, but we want to be the ones that are pushing something for all of North Folk. Maybe we can use that grant opportunity that Joan Compton mentioned. Yes and that's a note that's where I wanted to go with the questions is what does that mean do we go out and apply for it do we as a committee or how does that work? Okay that we have to talk to our city manager and our attorney about how we would do that. Okay. So that would be out of our hands, but it would be something that we say, hey, can we do that and make sure that we're part of that? Miss Compton do a presentation as the head of the historical society and She could give us a history on Macedonia and some of the African Americans who lived in the area as well Yeah, that's what I was gonna say is I'm sort of a history nerd and it'd be really neat to hear about the actual history of it and You know because I hate to say I wasn't really quite aware of it that much until just a few years ago and so it's always nice to learn the actual background in history and you know really the whole full meaning and depth of it. So yeah. Great. Okay. Okay. That's it. That's on the calendar. So what I'll do for our January meeting is I'll compile this and bring it back and it'll be in memo form and then we'll just revisit it with these details. See if there's any more ideas, if there's any more narrowing it down or you want to add details to it. And then the February meeting, I'll have the member that will go before council with this information. So we'll just confirm that this is what you want to take to council for your recommendations. So next week we'll get a list of what we all talked about. Next month. Next month, sorry, next month. What about something for Native Americans as well? What about something for Native Americans as well? We do, I know in Cherokee they have the pow-owls where they come and do a good weekend full of celebration also. Do we want to try to host something like that here in John's Creek? You know, speaking of that, there's a lot of freedoms now that almost could be celebrated and it almost seems like you could, July 4th is so close to June 10th, and I wouldn't want to take away from either one of them, obviously. But it almost, would there be a way where you have a week or two or you don't put a bunch of stuff all bundled together, make it all confusing, but maybe you celebrate some freedoms or. If you want to do Native American, I mean, you would go with Indigenous people's day, which is now Columbus Day. So that would be my suggestion. If you wanted to do that, and it's interesting with the whole powwow thing, because people like them, but none of the southeastern tribes from a, sorry, you got me on my pet peeve on this one, not peeve, but my, what I do for a living. So the tribes in the South East don't have a powwow tradition. They didn't do that typically. I mean they might have ceremonial dances, but it's not like you think of the big powwow. So some of them might have them now as like social things, but I think they would enjoy like a fun thing, a really fun and interesting thing to watch is stickball. And I know I've seen the Eastern Band of Cherokee will come down and do Stick Ball Tournament says demonstrations and let people see what it's like, people could join in, it's a rough game. But just having lectures and talks and have artists come and this is something we've talked about a lot is honoring Native artists. And if you're going to do art as public art, it really needs to be someone that is a Native artists. And if you're going to do art as public art, it really needs to be someone that is a Native artist. Doing the work. But I would love to see something like that happen. So population wise, do we have a number, how many Native American, or people who have some loved, you know, in the art in Georgia? There's actually 20 tribes, I think, that are federally recognized that are associated with Georgia, either in prehistory or during historic times, but none of them were here anymore, as federally right. They were all forced out of Georgia. So, the trail of tears, so everybody was forced to leave. So, those tribes are still active and vibrant and but they're elsewhere. You know, there's tribes in Texas, there's tribes in Oklahoma, most of them are in Oklahoma. So, and a lot of them like reasons to come back. I suspect you could probably talk to the Muscogee Creek Nation and they would be interested in coming because the Creek's of course being the other main tribe that were in this area. But that's something, yes, I would love to see happen. It's not that a powwow is a bad idea. It's just not something those tribes normally would have done. It's not historically, now they might, because it's fun, you know. Right. Or maybe it's part of the celebration where it's not. And that's the whole thing. The dance part of it is not all of it it gives you an opportunity to go and look at the costumes that are handmade. Oh Moge has a wonderful celebration for down at the National Park in Macon there's a really great celebration down there every fall that most of the tribes come to that were associated with the area. So it's a lot of fun. Great. A lot of to the list. Nice. Anything else? I think we're trying to get ideas, anything on the calendar that we want to talk about. So it's kind of hard to see what it is without seeing what we have so far. So is it a good idea around July 4th? We make a freedom of week or something to include all of this. I don't know. Juneteens and Native American tradition, whatever. And you know, just a freedom week around that to bundle them together. A festival of freedom? Yeah, that's a freedom. Yeah. Because then people will not be confused, right? It's around the right time right? July 4th make it a week Yeah, I think it's a good idea just as long as you keep it specific to you know, Juneteenth and it's one day that's very important and so on and so on It might be a great idea And then traditional of American, whatever. Yeah. And then absolutely. I'm a little concerned about programming in July. And that's because swim team ends at the end of June and everybody leaves. Because it's, we've stayed for swim team. We've stayed for summer sports. And now we have this little window before school starts again. I think it's a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit I don't think so. Like you think a lot. I don't think so. Yeah, right. Right. We're not watching. We're not watching. Out there counting one. That's one try. Two cars, three cars. If you look in the memo in your packet, the 2022 Special Events Calendar Suggestions, it does list the traditional special events hosted by the city. So, spring special events include the Easter Shavaganza Spring Park Party, Adoptive Recreation Easter Egg Dash, International Festivals in the Spring, Pitch and Run, Outdoor Fitness Program, Touch of Truck and Public Safety Day. I'm not going to read them all to you, but then it goes through the different seasons. And we would add for 2023, we would add Diwali in the fall events, and then we would add for 2023. We would add dolly in the fall events. And then we would add for winter. We would add lunar New Year and daftal days. Daftal days is winter spring. But we'll call winter because that was look short and lonely. Are these exhaustive lists of everything that goes on with the city so far spring so much. Traditionally. Yeah. So trucker treats a big deal in the fall. Obviously, if you were here, everyone was here. Papa Polusa Patriots Day summer. It looks like our major summer events are the movies at Newtown Park. The summer concert series. We do have the states we meet on here, MLB Playball event and our independent state celebration. I think when it comes to events we can get caught up in who's coming, how many people are coming. And I think it's okay to define what success is. I don't think success means 12,000 people out of the office, although that is successful. I'm not saying it isn't. But that's not necessarily the definition of success. If 500 people came to that event, I would have been very happy. So it's okay to do an event and not expect a million people. To your point, Lynn, I agree people travel in July or June, whenever swim teams over, but some people don't. So maybe just in the interest of, there are only 365 days in the year. There are only 52 weekends in the year that summers, okay, because some people are here and some people are staycationing or for what a reason can't go out of town and how nice to have something for them. Exactly. I'm not spending your money here. Even better. I like how you think. Yeah. So anyway, just to say like we're always going to find a reason to not do it. There's always something else going on somewhere. But I'd say if as long as it's not interfering with one of the events we already have on the calendar, which will have a bigger picture eventually for 2023, then let's go for it. That's all we can do, right? So we look at a Freedom Festival event. Thank you about the Freedom Festival. The only thing that would worry me a little bit about that is that I wouldn't want to take away from any of those ones.