HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-09-11-MMC-min.docxMonuments & Memorials Committee
Meeting Minutes
Thursday, September 11, 2025, 4:00 p.m.by Zoom
Members Present: Nick Wong, Chair; Linda Dixon, George Gamota, Leslie Masson, Regina
Sutton.
Members Absent: Avram Baskin, Glen Bassett, Liz Huttner.
Guests: Doug Lucente, Select Board Liaison; Bill Poole, Wei Ding.
Business:
• New Committee Chair Nick Wong, announcing that this was his first meeting as Chair,
convened the meeting at 4:05 pm, read the Town notice regarding the conduct of public
virtual meetings, and mentioned that member Regina Sutton was expected shortly, after
which a quorum would be present. (Regina arrived at 4:15 p.m.)
• George Gamota asked Doug Lucente what is happening with Lex250 during this coming
year when the 250th celebration focus will be away from Lexington and on the entire
state. Doug responded that Lex 250's charge ends in July 2026. The work of managing
celebrations will revert to the Town Celebrations Committee. Lex250 will support the
programming of the Office of Economic Development and other town groups. Their
main focus is the VO250 Campaign, where townwide volunteers record their volunteer
hours at Lex250.org. The goal: 250,000 volunteer hours.
Approval of Minutes
The committee approved the minutes of its meeting of June 5, 2025 by roll call vote.
Update on STEAM —Wei Ding
Wei Ding, mentor to the Youth STEAM Team, reported that over the summer, the team
conducted internal training on how to generate animation, to bring the 32 stories supplied by the
M&M Committee to life. This work has led to the creation of a new goal to be completed in May
of 2026: engage two professional trainers, one in storytelling, and one in movies. Armed with
this new knowledge, the STEAM Team or "Heroes" Team will divide into several teaching
teams, each with 17 students. To tell our stories in movie format, Wei related, the existing
narratives will need to be considerably enriched — and the team will need the M&M Committee's
help for this. They may need to create hand drawn artwork. This will not be an easy task, but the
students are up to the challenge. It's a great career development opportunity.
Nick Wong was confident that these talented students, with Al at their disposal, would do a good
job at filling in missing information. He suggests the working group — Linda, Bill, and Leslie —
should meet periodically with the students to monitor information gathered. George Gamota
referred Wei to the "Lexington Remembers" site, with Lexington residents telling their personal
stories through personal interviews.
Wei will propose a meeting when the students have something to show. They will use Al to
generate some images, and will seek advice on obtaining permissions for certain images.
Regina suggests finding some interesting and little-known detail about our famous forefathers
and focus on that. George suggests making the character's introduction in the present tense,
i.e., "My name is X."
Update on Database
Nick has been adding individual entries one at a time to the database. Progress is slow but
sure. He will review this in much more detail at our next meeting.
Change of Meeting Hour
As Liz Huttner was not in attendance, it wasn't possible to determine the group's preference to
keep the meeting time at 4:00 pm or switch to 7:00 pm to make things easier for our employed
members.
Next Meeting
Thursday, October 2, the date for our regularly scheduled meeting, marks the beginning of the
Yom Kippur observance at sundown. We should be able to complete our meeting (5:30 p.m.)
before that time. A quick check of attendance plans for Thursday, October 9 showed that this
was not a workable date for the Committee. Pending confirmation from the Town Clerk's Office
(Linda will check), we will meet on our regularly scheduled date.
Respectfully submitted,
Linda J. Dixon, Secretary