Around the Towns

Applications now being accepted for human services funding

BRATTLEBORO - The Representative Town Meeting Human Services Review Committee is accepting applications for fiscal year 2023 Human Services Funding.

The application, as well as instructions and guidelines, are posted at brattleboro.org. The deadline to submit applications to the town manager's office via email is Tuesday, Nov. 9, at 5 p.m.

Applicants are encouraged to attend an information session regarding town funding of human services programming scheduled on Wednesday, Oct. 20, at 1 p.m., at the Municipal Center, 230 Main St., in the Selectboard Meeting Room. It will be streamed on an online platform to be determined, with details and login information to be posted on the town website.

For more information regarding the application process, contact Jessica Sticklor, executive assistant, in the town manager's office at 802-251-8115 or [email protected].

Free acting workshop discusses Meisner Technique

BRATTLEBORO - The Hooker Dunham Theater & Gallery will offer a free acting workshop on the Meisner technique, instructed by Jim Maxwell., on Saturday, Oct. 16, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

This workshop will serve as an information session for Maxwell's upcoming class, “Introduction to the Meisner Technique,” which will be taught at the Hooker-Dunham Theater & Gallery, starting Wednesday, Nov. 3.

The Meisner technique is the brainchild of actor and teacher Sanford Meisner, who “realized there was a fundamental problem even with what was considered good acting: actors were rarely listening or present,” according to the Meisner Technique Studio. “Consequently you didn't believe them.”

According to the acting school, Meisner “created a process, a technique that would turn his actors into spontaneous, impulsive, instinctive, present, human, free, fearless, authentic, moment-to-moment machines.”

All workshop participants must bring proof of vaccination and a mask for the event. For more information, visit hookerdunham.org; to register for the workshop, email [email protected].

Vernon Historians host annual meeting and program

VERNON - On Sunday, Oct. 17, at 2 p.m., the Vernon Historians membership will hold its annual meeting at the Vernon Historical Museum, located near the south intersection of Route 142 and Pond Road.

The event will take place either outside the Annex Building, or inside with the large doors open, depending on the weather. If possible, bring a chair. Mask wearing will be expected.

After the meeting, at approximately 2:30 p.m., Cynthia Burns Martin, a professor at New England College in Henneker, N.H., will share the results of her exhaustive research to identify one of her Vernon ancestors.

In a handwritten family tree found in a Vernon farmhouse, a note referring to the ancestor, born in 1781, simply says “forgotten name, probably Emeline.”

Tracing any person in public records from the late 18th and 19th centuries can be challenging, and those challenges made finding “Emeline” elusive. After many years, Martin can share the story of her Vernon ancestor - no longer forgotten and no longer mistakenly called “Emeline.”

The public is invited to the free program.

Accelerated medical assistant program at CCV

BRATTLEBORO - Windham County residents have a unique opportunity to get started on a career in health care through a continued partnership between Brattleboro Memorial Hospital (BMH) and the Community College of Vermont (CCV).

BMH and CCV are once again offering an accelerated apprenticeship program to prepare qualified candidates for jobs as certified medical assistants.

Classes will be held at the CCV-Brattleboro campus at the Brooks House downtown, with all clinical aspects of the coursework completed at BMH.

BMH is providing full scholarships for eight applicants, whose tuition will be covered and who will be hired as medical assistants at the hospital upon successful completion of the program and certification exam.

An information session about the program will be held via Zoom on Wednesday, Oct. 20, from noon to 1:30 p.m. Zoom details are available at bmhvt.org/ma. The public is invited to learn about program details, the application process, and scholarship opportunities.

Enrollment in the one-semester program is limited to 20 participants. The application deadline is Nov. 15, and classes begin Jan. 24, 2022.

'Milk with Dignity' tour comes to Brattleboro

WEST BRATTLEBORO - On Friday, Oct. 22, from 6:30 to 8 p.m., at the West Village Meeting House, 29 South St., All Souls Church will host a presentation with farmworker leaders from Milk with Dignity.

According to organizers, the program has delivered “pay raises, paid sick leave, new health and safety standards, improved housing, and protections against sexual harassment, discrimination, and unjust firings for hundreds of workers” on Vermont farms.

“Through the program's worker-defined standards and binding enforcement mechanisms, workers have become frontline defenders of their human rights,” they write in a news release.

Milk with Dignity is hitting the road this fall to spread the word about the program and to talk to Vermonters about how migrant farmworkers continue to work daily to produce the milk and dairy products that line supermarket shelves.

Organizers said the presentation will explain how the program “brings together farmworkers, consumers, farmer owners, and corporate buyers with the principal goal of fostering a sustainable Northeast dairy industry that advances the human rights of farmworkers, supports the long-term interests of farm owners, and provides an ethical supply chain for retail food companies and consumers.”

Attendees are asked to wear a mask. For more information, email Karen Tyler at [email protected].

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