By popular demand, Marlboro College's Graduate and Professional Studies program has created a new Board Leadership Institute, offering trainings on six consecutive Thursdays in March and April.
The college will also partner with Youth Services, United Way of Windham County, and Southeastern Vermont Economic Development Strategies to continue offering the Get On Board Windham County program.
According to Ariel Brooks, director of non-degree programs at Marlboro, these programs provide skills development and networking opportunities for trustees serving nonprofits of all sizes, while also helping young professionals begin their work as the next generation of nonprofit board members.
The Board Leadership Institute is a collection of workshops that, taken together, introduce board members to the most important knowledge and skills for successful board service. Board members and organizations can sign up for the entire series, which includes an opening retreat, board roundtables, and a table at a board matching event. Tickets will also be available for individual workshops.
United Way of Windham County (UWWC) invites local nonprofit organizations with programs related to health, opportunity, economic prosperity, and education to apply for a Community Impact Grant. Community Impact Grant applications should align the United Way's priorities and the 14 established outcomes related to these areas, which can be...
Brattleboro's zoning regulations are undergoing their first overhaul in 30 years. The Town Planning Commission kicked off the public outreach and comment phase for the draft revisions of Brattleboro's zoning regulations with an open house and presentation at the Marlboro College Graduate Center on Jan. 22. “Cumbersome,” is how...
The Moore Free Library is offering a total of $12,000 in scholarships, generously funded by the family of the late Robert L. Crowell. These awards are open to qualified students residing in Newfane, Williamsville, South Newfane, and Brookline who will be entering their first year of college, trade, or vocational post-secondary education this fall. The scholarship committee will consider academics, contributions to the community, and financial need. The number of scholarships awarded and the award amounts are determined by the...
Sixty-eight thousand dollars in prizes is being offered for innovative business models and plans in the 2015 Windham Regional Business Planning Competition. The competition is presented in collaboration of Strolling of the Heifers and the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation. It is largely funded through the Windham County Economic Development Fund, which was created through the settlement agreement between Vermont Yankee and the state of Vermont. Additional competition funding comes from the Windham Foundation and the Vermont Community Foundation. Marlboro College...
Brattleboro Time Trade is one of 38 organizations to receive a recent grant from the Small and Inspiring Grants Program at the local-minded Vermont Community Foundation. One of a number of competitive grant rounds at the Foundation, Small and Inspiring Grants fund work “that helps connect people to their neighbors, their land, and their history in ways that strengthen community.” Brattleboro Time Trade says it has received $2,080 through the program to reach out to low-income community members and welcome...
College news • Castleton State College nursing student Samuel O'Brien of Brattleboro recently joined nearly 100 other Castleton nursing students who participated in the inaugural Arnold P. Gold Foundation White Coat Ceremony. The White Coat Ceremony was designed in 1993 by the Gold Foundation as a way to welcome new students into the medical profession and to set clear expectations regarding their primary role as physicians. The inaugural tradition, which includes the cloaking and recitation of the medical oath by...
Council on Rural Development to visit Vernon VERNON - All Vernon residents, community organizations, groups and businesses are invited to attend an informational meeting with the Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD). VCRD Executive Director Paul Costello and associate Jenna Whitson will speak on the what the VCRD Community Visit program has to offer the Vernon community. This informational meeting will be held Thursday, Feb. 5, at 6 p.m., in the Vernon Elementary School cafeteria. The snow date is Feb.
On Monday, Feb. 9, at 5 p.m., West Brattleboro businesses are invited to discuss business and economic development ideas with Brattleboro and Windham County development organizations. Representatives will be present from Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation, Brattleboro Area Chamber of Commerce, Windham Regional Commission, and the town of Brattleboro. The meeting will take place in the central conference room at the 55 Marlboro Road building and is being organized by the West Brattleboro Association. (The 55 Marlboro Rd. building is the...
This year's major fundraiser for the Windham County Heat Fund - “Heating it up with the Ladies of the Rainbow” - will take place on Saturday, Feb. 7, at 8 p.m., at the VFW on Black Mountain Road. The drag show has become a popular local event and usually sells out in advance. This is adult entertainment and is not suitable for children. Doors will open at 7 p.m. and the show will begin at 8 p.m. There will be...
Residents of Putney may have access to emergency heat assistance from Putney Family Services. That's according to Patricia Field, the organization's executive director. “Putney residents who need help with their heating bills have several resources,” Field said in a press release. She explained the organization works directly with families to access the help they need, “and then if they still have need we have some funds available for fuel.” She added that Putney Family Services had earmarked the proceeds of...
These days poetry readings can be pretty dry affairs. Too often an author merely reads verse in front of a solemn and polite audience. But that is not the way it has to be. In the 1950s, beatniks gathered in coffeehouses to hear the latest would-be Ginsburg recite his poems accompanied by Miles Davis-styled jazz combos. In the “happenings” of the 60s, poets could read amidst the unveiling of multi-media art installation. On Feb. 13 and 14, at the Hooker-Dunham...
Following are some links to some of the resources and agencies mentioned in this story, and further reading about the issues. • Our Place Drop-In Center: facebook.com/pages/Our-Place-Drop-In-Center/108093325921 • Southeastern Vermont Community Action: sevca.org • Greater Falls Warming Shelter: facebook.com/pages/Greater-Falls-Warming-Shelter/148551791842952 • Morningside Shelter: morningsideshelter.org • Pathways Vermont: pathwaysvermont.org • Small Houses for Southern Vermont's Homeless: facebook.com/groups/663503673758606/ • Wikipedia's entry for Housing First: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First...
The decommissioning of Vermont Yankee will be one of the most significant undertakings in the state's history. We need to pay at least as much attention to decommissioning as we are paying to the economic impacts of Yankee's closure and who gets how much money from what fund. On Feb. 19, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will be in Brattleboro to hold its one public hearing on Entergy's decommissioning plan, the Post Shut down Decommissioning Activities Report (PSDAR). This coming...
Brattleboro has enjoyed continuous library service since 1821, when local citizens created a private lending library. Later, in 1842, to continue to build its collections, it became a subscription library. Finally, in 1882, a group of townspeople created a committee to recommend that Brattleboro's Town Meeting vote town funds to support a free, public library. This act spurred Brattleboro businessman George J. Brooks - who had built the Brooks House Hotel in 1872 - to donate funds to erect the...
The slate of candidates for the upcoming vacant seats on the Rockingham Free Public Library Board of Trustees will appear at a “Meet the Candidates” night at the library in Bellows Falls on Monday, Feb. 9, from 6 to 7 p.m. The session aims to give Rockingham voters a sense of the candidates - and insight into their views on the library and its challenges and potential. Four candidates are running to fill the four trustee seats that will be...
The Saxtons River Park project took another step forward with the hiring of a Qualified Environmental Professional (QEP) team to carry out the planning for the remediation of its future park site. Village Trustees voted to hire LE Environmental (LEE) of Waterbury to move forward the cleanup of the brownfields site by carrying out its corrective action plan and developing the final construction documents. The work will be funded by part of a $275,500 EPA grant the village received for...
Is the Putney Food Co-op losing its principles to the “corporatist future of America”? I don't think so. Some tangible evidence and hard facts would be helpful when evaluating the health and values of the Putney Food Co-op. Just look around - it's not hard to find our principles in action. Walk into the store. It is a vibrant, local, independent market. Those photos you see of our local farmers, community members, and board members aren't just decor, they celebrate...
Unlike the disgruntled members of the Putney Food Co-op who leapt to unwarranted conclusions of sinister conspiracy about a perfectly innocent effort to simplify their co-op's bylaws (“Losing our principles,” Viewpoint, Jan. 14), the organizers of the Brattleboro Food Co-op Shareholder Forum raise some profound issues (“Disheartened that our co-op speaks with one voice and listens with one ear,” Jan. 28) that deserve full and serious consideration - not just at their co-op but at all food co-ops. And while...
Local artist Susan Rosano recently completed a residency at Brattleboro Union High School, transforming what she calls rusty trash into “an artistic statement of ecology” with her oil drum art project. Her connection to oil cans began in 2005, when she lived in Connecticut. “I saw an ad in the Hartford papers: A man wanted artists to create art from recycled oil drums that he had in his warehouse,” Rosano said. “He would give them to artists for free if...
Few kids who play with toy fire trucks drive the real things when they grow up. Lt. Jason Davis and On-Call Firefighter Ray Bessette turned their love of fighting fires and sense of duty into more than 30 years of service with the Brattleboro Fire Department. Davis has worked full-time in town for 14 years, and Bessette has fulfilled 20 years with the department. On-call firefighters are the department's volunteer members. The on-call members participate in training and receive a...
The Brattleboro Union High School Music Department will present the hit musical “Grease” on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (Feb. 12-14) in the BUHS Auditorium. The Thursday performance will begin at 4 p.m. Friday and Saturday evening performances will begin at 7 p.m. Admission is $6 for all seats at Thursday's show, $10 for all seats at Friday's and Saturday's evening shows. Senior citizens' tickets will be $6 for all performances. Tickets will be available in the front office of the...
Becky Stone is already busy in her new position as town administrator. She was hired in December amid preparations for grants, budget reviews, and the upcoming Annual Town Meeting. Once hired, she accepted immediately. Today, she remains unperturbed and is busy planning for a proposal for a Town Highway Structures Grant from the state Agency of Transportation, which will seek money to reinforce the Green River Bridge, whose load rating was reduced from 8 tons to 4 tons last fall.
The Leland & Gray basketball program played its second annual Hoops for Hope games last week against Twin Valley. The event was a fundraiser for the Alexis June “Lexy” Giallella Scholarship Fund. Giallella, a student at Leland & Gray, died of cancer on Nov. 12, 2013, at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H. The Brookline teen was a month shy of her 16th birthday. Players and coaches in both the girls' and boys' games wore the Hoops for Hope T-shirts...
“Morning Melody,” a trio for French horn, piano and snare drum composed by sixth-graders Amelia Opsahl and Wells Mundell-Wood from The Grammar School in Putney, was selected for Opus 29, and was recently performed by professional musicians at the Opus 29 Concert at St. Michael's College in Colchester. Members of the sixth grade class entered three compositions into the Opus 29 competition run by Music-COMP, and this is the second time work by Opsahl and Mundell-Wood was selected. Alli Lubin...
For the last 12 years, February's Friday Night Gallery Walk has included a show of talent that gives people one more great reason to come downtown whatever the weather may bring. Taking the stage on Friday, Feb. 6, at 8 p.m., six regional high school a cappella groups will give a concert at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center in anticipation of Saturday's collegiate event at the Latchis. Proceeds from this event support Brattleboro's In-Sight Photography Project. The line-up for...
Ronald James “Ron” Read of Brattleboro was a simple man who lead a quiet life. Read died in June 2014 at the age of 92, but his memory will live on for years to come, thanks to an extraordinary gift. Last week, the Brooks Memorial Library learned it would received a bequest of more than $1.2 million from Read's estate for the library's current endowment fund. “It was an amazing surprise,” said Library Director Jerry Carbone. “We're pretty sure that...
January saw temperatures dip below zero for the first time in what had been a moderate winter. When that happens, the people at most risk for freezing to death are the homeless. While most of the local homeless people - a “handful” of five to 10 - will seek shelter at the Greater Falls Warming Shelter in North Walpole, N.H., Lisa Pitcher, director of Our Place Drop-In Center in Bellows Falls, said there are those who refuse to go and...
I'm sitting at my computer and watching in rotation Maggie Lake's eight stunning giclée botanical prints (on archival paper) that the Mitchell-Giddings Fine Arts Gallery has posted on its website. On Jan. 8, I was at the opening of the show, “Gone to Seed.” Now that Maggie has died at the young age of 60, I finally get it. The flowers, leaves, and berries that Maggie chose for this series - the last in her 30 years of hiking woods...
At the end of a four-hour meeting, the Brattleboro Selectboard approved the March 3 townwide ballot and March 21 Representative Town Meeting meeting warning. Depending on how votes go in less than two months, residents could see the adoption of a $15.7 million municipal budget and the lowering of the legal voting age for town elections. The townwide Australian ballot, along with the customary election of town officers, will include three articles seeking to amend the Town Charter and a...
It didn't come with the advance warning of the epic storm last week that buried southern New England, but Monday's snowstorm gave southern Vermont a taste of what it missed only days earlier. Many snow lovers felt cheated that most of the snow that was forecast for southern Vermont last week fell 50 miles east of Brattleboro, but they got a second chance on Monday, as more than a foot of snow fell in Windham County. The National Weather Service...
Stone Church Arts brings the solo violin concert performance of Francesca Anderegg to the stone church on the hill, 20 Church St., Bellows Falls, on Saturday, Feb. 7, at 7:30 p.m. Anderegg's program includes works by J.S. Bach, Harbison, Ysaye, and Kreisler. Hailed by The New York Times for her “rich tone” and “virtuosic panache,” Anderegg delivers insightful accounts of contemporary and classical music. Through her inventive programming, active composer collaborations, and precise yet impassioned interpretations, Anderegg has earned renown...
Friends of Music at Guilford, now in its 49th concert season, has been presenting a three-day music enrichment residency for the Guilford Central School (GCS) for seven seasons. Master teacher Todd Roach, a drummer-percussionist based in Brattleboro, and a number of his performing colleagues have been working with the upper grades at GCS in rhythm, voice, and instrumental workshops. Participants demonstrate what they have been learning at an assembly performance for the whole school on the final day. Support for...