VINEMONT — Senior citizens in South Vinemont may soon have a venue to gather and host events, with the town council discussing the approval of the Vinemont Community Center to be used for a senior citizen program.

Mayor Radginald Dodson said that he would like to perform a “trial run” of sorts by approving the usage for a set amount of time to gauge community’s interest in a seniors program. The town would announce the proposed program events with both the Cullman County Commission on Aging and various media outlets and judge the program’s effectiveness based upon attendance and participation.

“If there’s an interest in it, that’s fine. If not, well, there ya go,” Dodson said.

Dodson originally proposed an end day of February or March, but councilmembers stated that low participation during the winter months might create a false representation of the actual interest from area seniors and decided to extend the deadline until later in the spring.

During the council’s work session councilman Chris Thompson gave his fellow members their first glimpse of a recently completed tourism video designed to “show the beauty of Vinemont.” Thompson enlisted the services of Luiz Minardi — an independent hobbyist videographer out of Decatur — who visited various businesses in the town each Friday for 10 weeks to create the five and half minute video.

While locations like Hurricane Creek Park and activities like Skydive Alabama are featured in the video, Thompson said that Minardi would be adding a rolling list of all of the area’s businesses and attractions before its release.

Thompson said that the video’s soundtrack of “Roll with the Changes” by REO Speedwagon created the ideal backdrop to convey the video’s intended purpose.

“There’s a line in there that says ‘So if you’re tired of the same old story, turn some pages. I’ll be here when you are ready to roll with the changes,’ and that’s what we are doing. We’re changing, and I just wanted to do something to show off the beauty of this town,” Thompson said.

As the council was nearing the end of its meeting, councilmember Sonya Copeland made a motion to include the item of using $500 of the town’s $1,000 yearly advertising budget to pay Minardi for his services.

During the vote Dodson originally stated his desire to table the matter until the council’s January meeting. This statement was met with resistance from Thompson who asked if the mayor thought the video was undeserving of a $500 price tag.

“I didn’t say nothing about what I thought it was worth or not. I just said I think we need to wait and talk about this some more, rather than making a snap judgement,” Dodson said.

Dodson reluctantly cast a vote of approval, asking that the minutes reflect that the decision was “against [his] better judgement.”