Attendees:

Stephan Anstey, Ed Marshall, Billy Perrault, Janet Stevens, Elaine Seidel, Judy Bissette, Karen Kleine, Kate Hemenway

1)”The Body Says Know” exhibit

- We set up the schedule for sitting at the gallery

- Ed gave us rules and procedures, then we discussed them. there is a manual on what to do sitting on the table. Things like being there at a quarter of the hour and going to the visitor center for the key to open the gallery.
- It will be a great time for us to sit quietly and reflect and write poetry.
- We should go to the gallery and talk to the person sitting and ask that person what they do at the gallery like where are the lights switches.
- Put signs out and open to the public.
- We can prepare ourselves by going to the gallery and finding out what, where, and when. The to do list.
- Always keep safety in mind whatever you do.
- August 1st is the set up date, bring hammer, string, nails, whatever you need to put up your poetry and art.
- Slowly the excitement begins. We will have 14 to 18 exhibits, 30 people involved.
- We recognized that we have a lot of talent in Lowell and the surrounding community. We are blessed.

- We can put books on that table and literature and flyers.
- Ed showed us the cards we are going to spread around for advertising. We will have 30 Card board Cards and a lot of small ones. It was designed by Patrick Pierce and it has “Ahead & Love” on the front of the card. Ed and I will take care of paying for them.
- Kate will take care of the reception goodies on August 24. We hope that the entire LPN comes to this exhibit for that day.

2) Finances

- We do not have any money.
- We will have to do something about that with grants in the future.

3) Logo

- We need an LPN LOGO, someone mentioned. Stephan said he has been thinking about that for a year and has many suggestions.

4) Mass Poetry Festival

- We will not do anything on Thursday, Yom Kippur. Ed asked two LPN Jewish members to explain this important holiday to see if it would really have an impact. Basically, it all depends on how big is the Jewish community in Lowell or it is basically up to us to do what we want. We just wanted some clarification.
- We talked about the Festival in October. Friday 10/10 has its own set up.
- We should go and support the activity.
- On Sat. 10/11 we should be there with all the other groups and make everyone feel welcome.
- At lunch time, poets will be reading in restaurants around town.
- A schedule will be forth coming from the festival committee.
- On Sunday, we can stay in the background. as the festival committee will direct visitors to tours in and around Lowell from Newburyport to Concord.
- There will be an “Visions of Italy” exhibit at the All Arts Gallery from September 20 to October 13.
- It will be there during the festival. We will have poetry in boxes. Ed would like us to give him our titles and picture information.

5) October 3rd will be the Kerouac Festival.

6) Gallery Reception
- At the reception on August 24th we are having “Pot Luck” so bring a dish of some kind.
- At the reception, we should be prepared to talk about our art and poetry.
-Billy can video tape the event and put it on TV. It’s important we archive what we do. Belly already has a few videos on some of our activities. He will show videos of poets reading at the exhibit and other reading like Umass Lowell Conference and Concord Readings and Medford readings.

7) On Television this week

- This week on Billy’s show,Andy Levesque as feature. He is the Walden Pond Poet. He had a good reading last year.
- Billy’s Poetry show is on channel 8 at 10 PM on Wednesday and 10PM on Friday channel 95.

8)Arts Walk
- Elaine mentioned that there will be art in the store windows around town. They will have a map and you can vote for the best and the winner will receive a prize.
- We can have art work and poetry like window art also. They have 8 windows on Middle Street alone in empty stores.

9) Planning
- Maybe by the end of the year we can organize and set up goals and focus for the Lowell Poetry Network.
- Let’s get the press releases out and put those cards out and let the public know that we will have an exhibit in August.