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Get Your Feet Wet: Introducing VCE’s Vermont Vernal Pool Monitoring Project and Vernal Pool Conservation for Landowners

MARLBORO –Are you a landowner with a vernal pool on your property? Do you want to contribute to Citizen Science and learn more about the importance of vernal pools? Get your feet wet with the workshop, Vermont Vernal Pool Monitoring Project and Vernal Pool Conservation for Landowners, co-sponsored by the Vermont Center for Ecostudies, the Vermont Woodlands Association, the Southern Vermont Natural History Museum, and the Hogback Mountain Conservation Area. The workshop will be held Sunday, May 13, from 12:30-3:30PM at the Southern Vermont Natural History Museum in Marlboro at the famous Hogback Summit.


Information Meeting for River Gallery School Trip to Provence on May 10

An informational meeting for anyone interested in joining the River Gallery School’s trip to Provence in September will be held on Thursday, May 10, at 6:00 at the school on 32 Main Street in Brattleboro. Those interested in learning more about the tour is invited to attend.

The trip will take place from September 15-22, 2018, with a three-day optional stay prior to the tour in Avignon. The tour is sponsored by the River Gallery School and organized by Travel Fever Tours of Putney.


Call Bernie: Crisis upon Crisis and War in Gaza

On Sunday Norman Finkelstein spoke at the First Baptist Church about the inhumane conditions in the Israeli-controlled Gaza Strip and the terrible slaughter and war that are imminent.

Israel has managed an effective media black-out about the conditions in Gaza, which has been condemned by the UN and is virtually a death camp. The thousands of Palestinians gathering near the fences of Israel may sacrifice themselves to show their desperation to an un-hearing world. They will storm the fences of Israel on the 14th of this month, Nakba Day, which commemorates the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland during the Israeli war for independence in 1948.


Artist Exhibit Opening at MGFA: Bruce Campbell, Thinking the Cosmos

May 12- June 24:  Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts is pleased to feature sculptor Bruce Campbell’s Thinking the Cosmos: Kinetic Sculpture. An opening reception will take place Saturday, May 12 from 5:30-8pm, with an Artist Talk scheduled for Saturday, June 9th at 5:30pm.

Bruce Campbell graduated from Syracuse University with a BFA in printmaking and received an MFA from Indiana University. In the early ‘70s Campbell began designing books and manuscripts, and soon he was  specializing in the design of art museum books and catalogues. For thirty years his clients included The Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, The Peabody Museum, and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, among others.


Selectboard Meeting Notes – Downtown Parking, Utility Rates, Town Plan, and a Mouse

The Brattleboro Selectboard scheduled too many weighty issues for their Tuesday meeting at the Municipal Center. As the meeting went on, agenda items were jettisoned in repeated attempts to keep the length of the meeting somewhat reasonable.

Those issues that were discussed were discussed in detail. The board learned about the Utilities Fund budget and possible rate changes in coming years, discussed goals for the coming year, received a presentation on the results of a Downtown Parking Survey, and held a public hearing on the Town Plan revision. They attended to Department of Transportation paperwork, settled a lawsuit, changed the name of a street, applied for grants, and more.

Also, a mouse.


Monday Morning Movies in May

May Showings – POLITICS AS USUAL ?

Movies starring:
May 7th – Meryl Streep, Jim Broadbent –10 am
May 14th – Judi Dench, Ali Fazal – 9:30 am
May 21st – Q’oranka Kilcher, Barry Pepper – 10 am
May 28th – No Movie Memorial Day


Windham World Affairs Council Holds Talk on Iran Nuclear Deal on Eve of Trump’s Decision

On Friday, May 11, 2018 @7:00 pm the Windham World Affairs Council is presenting “Revisiting the Nuclear Agreement between Iran and the US, the JCPOA,” a major talk at a decisive moment for our country,  The talk, which is free and open to the public, will be held in the Sanctuary of the Centre Congregational Church, 193 Main St, Brattleboro, which has a large capacity and is handicapped-accessible.

WWAC announces this major talk at a decisive moment for our country as President Trump is getting ready to tell the world whether or not he will honor the agreement made by his predecessor with Iran and five other world powers and is also preparing for direct talks on denuclearization with North Korean leader Kim Jung-un.


Spoon River — A New Play in Guilford This Weekend

SPOON RIVER, the 1915 American classic about the people in a rural small town, is this spring’s offering at Guilford Center Stage. The original is an anthology of free-verse poems, spoken by the residents of the town graveyard. We meet some 70 different characters in vignettes that are in turn touching, sad, and amusing. Our stage adaptation is by Guilford playwright, Michael Nethercott, who directs an ensemble of 16 actors from Bernardston, Athens, Chester, Westminster West, Brattleboro, and Guilford.


BCTV Schedules – Week of 4/30/18

BCTV Channel 8 schedule for the week of 4/30/18

Monday, April 30, 2018

12:20 am UVM Community Medical School – Transgender Health and Healthcare
2:00 am Dry Stone Art in Nature
3:00 am Moccasin Tracks: Abenaki Cultural Regeneration – Basic Teachings
4:00 am Vote for Vermont – Debate on Abortion
5:00 am Green Mtn Mornings Tonight – GMMT: Friday News Show 4/13/18
5:30 am Vigil for Democracy – Candlelight Vigil for Democracy: 4/8/18 in Bratt
6:30 am Osher Lifelong Learning Institute – Introduction to Islam


Spring Drawing Workshop at The Drawing Studio (May 5th and 6th)

This weekend workshop will help you to draw anywhere you are with more curiosity and enjoyment. The world and nature are in constant communication with us. There are ways of seeing and drawing that can move this communication into a conversation. When we see something not only as its object name i.e. brook, but also as it’s qualities, flowing, cold, reflective, dark, murmuring, the brook becomes fuller, more dimensional and we have many more ways to creatively interact with it. Also, our drawings become more personal and particular to our senses and our experience of things.


Art Over Fear: Free Workshop

Sometimes it can be hard to accept and unfurl our own creativity. Shadowy doubts, coupled with other people’s comments–or their seeming indifference, can make us believe that creativity is for other people, but not for us.

In this hands-on workshop, we’ll work with these questions and more, individually and as a group:
· How does it feel to think of yourself as creative?
· What happens when you let yourself create without judgement?
· What will give you the courage the create on a regular basis?


Walking The Streets of Brattleboro

In the last couple weeks, I’ve had many opportunities to experience Brattleboro as a homeless person. That’s, of course, an exaggeration.  I’m not homeless. I just had to get out of the apartment so our landlord could show the house to prospective buyers. Nor had one anyone asked me to leave — I left voluntarily because I felt uncomfortable being there. But still and all, there I was downtown, at all hours of the day, killing time and feeling a little unmoored from what I had become accustomed to thinking of as “home.”  The experience wasn’t fun, but it did give me an unusual perspective that proved to be educational.


Digital Privacy: Protecting Yourself Online

On Monday, May 7th from 6:00pm-7:30pm Brooks Memorial Library will host Vermont-based, digital educator and librarian, Jessamyn West, for a discussion on Digital Privacy on the Main Floor of the library. Jessamyn West is a nationally recognized leader, working on raising awareness and educating the public about technology and the digital divide, while also advocating for libraries to play an increased role in technology education for their patrons.


Vermont Pastel Society Exhibit at The Gleanery in Putney

Ten artists from the SouthEast Regional Hub of the Vermont Pastel Society are showing selected original pastels at The Gleanery restaurant in Putney.  Please find some time in your busy day to stop in and enjoy the art and the food! 

The artists are Carol Corliss, Monica Hastings, Lesley Heathcote, Deedee Jones, Pat McPike, Matthew Peake, Gill Truslow, Rodrica Tilley, Maggie Smith, and Carol Stephens.  These are folks who live in the area, may be your neighbors or friends, may be people you know on a professional level.  All are experienced artists who enjoy working in pastel, a medium that consists of pure pigment mixed with enough binder to form a stick.  Pastels have been used by artists for centuries.  When framed, they are highly archival and permanent.  These paintings are all for sale.  To purchase a painting, please contact the artist directly.  There is a price list available with contact information.


A Phil Hoff Story

Back in the ‘60s, I attended a conference of Electrical Utilities.

The conference was held in Lake George, NY, and the two keynote speakers were Nelson Rockefeller, then Governor of New York, and the newly elected Governor of Vermont, Phil Hoff.

Rockefeller was the first to arrive, and, arrive he did, with a huge entourage.


Brattleboro Selectboard Agenda and Notes – May 1, 2018

Brattleboro’s Police Department might be getting a carport. It’s one of the final recommendations of the Police-Fire Facilities Committee and will be up for discussion at Tuesday’s meeting of the Brattleboro Selectboard.

The board will learn of improvements to the Union Station train station in the near future. They will discuss the FY19 Utilities Budget, initiate final designs for the waste process water line at Pleasant Valley, hold a public hearing on the revised Town Plan, learn about the downtown parking study, review the Solid Waste budget for FY19, and more. You can bring up other items not on the agenda during public participation, too.


Gov. Scott Wants To Issue Tax Penalties on Brattleboro for Providing Quality Education

The legislative session is wrapping up and the budget is still on the line. The threats coming out of Gov. Scott’s office are terrible.

-Gov. Scott has said all year that he wants to level funding and impose strict staff ratios at our public schools.
-Townships met and voted on their budgets through Vermont’s democratic process. In most cases, including in Brattleboro, they followed Scott’s budgetary directive.
-This wasn’t good enough for Gov. Scott. He is now threatening to FINE communities (Yes, fine. As in make them pay the state money through tax penalties.) for failing to meet his arbitrary staffing ratios.