Town staff demonstrated the Town of Hubbardston’s updated website and explained how clerks and committee secretaries can use a shared calendar, event pages and standard templates for agendas and minutes.

"If you scroll all the way down to the bottom, upcoming events, we have all of town events that people send us to be posted as well as all board committee meetings posted on this," Mel Green, town clerk and clerk for the board of registrars, said while showing the new site. She said boards can request editing access so they can manage their own pages and that the town can set recurring events for regular meetings.

Green said the town has prepared standardized templates — for agenda formatting, minutes, and a sign-in sheet — to help ensure each board posts consistent, legally compliant agendas and minutes. She said the templates include the common elements required by the open-meeting law and that she will email the templates to clerks and committees.

Clerks discussed practical uses: placing the town seal on letterhead, copying the agenda into the minutes template as a starting point, including a "matters not reasonably anticipated by the chair" slot for urgent items, and using the sign-in sheet to record attendees and contact details. Green said the templates and the calendar make it easier to check for scheduling conflicts and to post agendas and supplementary documents used in hearings or other public business.

Staff offered to give site-editing access and asked clerks to provide email addresses if they want accounts on the site. The town will follow up by email with templates and instructions for using the calendar and recurring-event settings.