WESTMINSTER - Tai chi, the Chinese method of slow, fluid movements, has been called the perfect exercise for older adults. It can improve balance, coordination, flexiblility, and mood, and can ease the symptoms of chronic conditions such as arthritis and Parkinson's Disease.
A new course for beginners will start Tuesday, Oct. 8, at 11 a.m. at the Westminster Institute on Route 5. The course is hosted by Westminster Cares and will be taught by Ben Daviss, a senior instructor with the New Hampshire-based, nonprofit Oriental Healing Arts Association.
The group will meet weekly for an hour. The cost is $5 per session, but the introductory class Oct. 8 is free. No commitment is required. Depending on interest, they also may offer a course in seated tai chi or a late-day or early-evening class.
To learn more or to register, contact Donna Dawson, director of Westminster Cares, at 802-722-3607 or wecares@sover.net.
Individuals interested in learning more about the Brattleboro Concert Choir are invited to sing with the group on Wednesday, Sept. 4, at 7 p.m. at the Brattleboro Music Center. Also at the rehearsal, the choir will introduce its fall concert music, including works by Arvo Pärt and Ola Gjeilo.
Beginning Oct. 3, and running through March 2020, The Sustainable Energy Outreach Network and the Windham Regional Career Center will offer late afternoon and evening trainings designed to help working-age adults enter their careers as Level I High Performance Builders. This is the initial phase of an industry-recognized credential...
Friends of Music at Guilford, now in its 54th concert season, is seeking additional voices for its Chamber Singers, who have been featured in their holiday concert at historic Christ Church for nearly five decades. Directed by Tom Baehr for an eighth year, the group has openings in all sections, especially tenors, for singers with previous experience. The ensemble has received high praise for its musicianship under Baehr's leadership. For this year's program, “An Olde New England Christmas,” the Chamber...
The Green Mountain Care Board has recently granted double-digit rate increases to Vermont's largest insurance companies. The board was created to oversee the transition to universal health care. It is now chaired by a Koch brothers operative, appointed by a governor who is a Koch brothers beneficiary. The board's functional mission now is to enrich insurance companies, reward hospitals for profiting from the sick, and oversee the handing over of Vermont's health-care system to a corporation, One Care, that is...
Dave Rosane & The Zookeepers have spent this summer raising money for more than a dozen Vermont libraries through their donation-based concerts. Now, it's the turn of the Friends of the Rockingham Library to showcase some great music for a great cause with a benefit concert at Stage 33 Live (33 Bridge St, just past the post office) on Saturday, Aug. 31, at 7 p.m. The band's tour title is “Across the Zoo-niverse,” paralleling this year's Summer Reading Program theme...
College news • The following local students graduated in May from Western New England University in Springfield, Mass.: Brennen D. Zolnoski of Brattleboro graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BSE in Biomedical Engineering and Molly T. Dufault of Saxtons River graduated Cum Laude with a B.S. in Health Sciences. • The following local students were honored for academic achievement in the spring 2019 semester at Clark University in Worcester, Mass.: Morgan K. Brooke-deBock of Brattleboro received first honors on Clark's...
Write Action announced the winners of its annual poetry and prose contest. There was no theme this year. Besides all winners receiving a cash prize, first place winners in both categories will read at the Write Action Spotlight reading at the Brattleboro Literary Festival on Oct. 19. Second and third place winners have a spot reserved at the Open Reading the evening of Oct. 19. • Poetry: first place, Charles Monette for his poem “An Bain's Bullet Ballet”; second place,
Art in black and white is the focus of a show in the Main Street Arts gallery that opened Aug. 20 and continues through Sept. 24. An opening reception with the artists will be held Thursday, Aug. 29, from 5:30 to 7 p.m., with piano music by Karen Engdahl. The husband-and-wife team of Charmaine Wesley-Hartman and Terry Hartman of Chester will share their paintings, original prints, drawings, prose, photographs, computer art, calligraphy, and quilts as they explore how “black and...
On two Saturdays, Oct. 5 and Oct. 19, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Brattleboro Area Hospice's Taking Steps Brattleboro Program will host a two-day ACP Facilitator/Volunteer Training. The two-day training will be held at Brattleboro Area Hospice, 191 Canal St. Applications are due by Monday, Sept. 16. The training is offered to anyone who would like to learn how to assist people in completing and registering their Advance Directive. Advance Care Planning ensures that a person's loved ones and...
The Brattleboro Area Chamber of Commerce invites the public to attend “The Growing Business of Cannabis: A panel discussion on the ins and outs of the cannabis industry.” This Chamber Breakfast Series event will take place in Brattleboro on Thursday, Sept. 5, from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m., at American Legion Post 5, 32 Linden St. Tickets are $20 and include a full buffet breakfast. RSVP is required. The state of Vermont legalized the sale of medical marijuana in 2004, but...
Art in the Neighborhood, a Brattleboro-based nonprofit, recently received an Arts Impact grant from the Vermont Arts Council. Arts Impact Grants are “designed to support nonprofit organizations in making art experiences equitable and accessible to marginal communities,” according to the Arts Council. The grant will support a project titled “Image to Page: Poetry, Art, and Books.” Noted poet Verandah Porche will work with students at Westgate Housing, Ledgewood Heights, and Moore Court to create poems and stories through a method...
The River Singers community choir, led by Mary Cay Brass, is embarking on its 29th year of song this fall. The multi-generational, multi-cultural group is open to all beginning Tuesday, Sept. 17, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the Westminster West Church, with two holiday concerts at Next Stage in Putney on December 14 and 15. According to a news release, “the River Singers build bridges with music; bridges to each other by opening their voices in song; and bridges...
The Brattleboro Memorial Hospital nurses need your support. I would say that they are in contract negotiations with the hospital, but the fact is, they are the hospital. It is worth remembering that the one thing provided in hospital care that you cannot receive on an outpatient basis is nursing care. Nursing staff are there 24/7 when you are at your most vulnerable, physically and emotionally. BMH faces the same critical issues being faced by other small, rural hospitals. One...
In 2006, the town commissioned an energy audit of municipal buildings, which generated a long list of upgrades and changes that in the years to follow would reduce the town's energy footprint. Some of the work is ongoing. The list included replacing the windows at the Gibson-Aiken Center, swapping out oil burners for wood boilers at the Transportation Center, and changing the street lamps to LED bulbs. Planning Director Sue Fillion and Assistant Town Manager Patrick Moreland provided updates on...
By way of taking Kevin O'Keefe to task for blaming Donald Trump for inciting violence in our country, Gerard Cloutier wrote, “I, for one, do not feel as if I am living day by day with a target on my back. In fact, I enjoy every freedom America has to offer.” At the risk of being accused of racial profiling, that statement could have been written only by a privileged white man.
Gerard Cloutier writes that he feels very safe in Vermont, refutes any presidential responsibility for a rise in “violent crime,” and presents statistics to demonstrate that, in fact, there has been no rise in violent crime during the current administration. As Mark Twain said, “There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Here are the numbers Mr. Cloutier left out. Despite a 43-percent drop in overall violent crime since the 1990s, mass shootings have increased dramatically since the Federal Assault Weapons...
On Labor Day, Sept. 7, 1942, far from the horror of World War II, local farm families set aside time to catch up during a pause in the season between haying and cutting corn. “It was also a chance to celebrate soldiers coming home from the service,” Harry Evans says. Evans was 5 years old at the time of Guilford's first Old Home Day, which over the next 75 years would evolve into the Guilford Fair, an upbeat two-day festivity...
The fall sports season begins this week with Brattleboro's first game as a Division II football program. The Colonels will be at Hadley Field to face the Bellows Falls Terriers on Friday, Aug. 30 at 7 p.m. Brattleboro dropped down to Division II this season, but the teams they face are no pushovers, starting with the Terriers, who were Division II semifinalists in the 2018 season, finalists in 2017, and state champs in 2016. The Colonels haven't been in the...
It is something that Brattleboro-area residents haven't been able to do in decades - take a train to New York City in the early morning, and be able to return the same day. Now, a short drive to Greenfield, Mass., will again make such a trip possible, when the Valley Flyer is scheduled to start service on Aug. 30. Valley Flyer is the name that the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) has given to a two-year pilot program that will...
The Selectboard has narrowly voted to hire a sustainability coordinator, despite a lack of consensus even among proponents on exactly what encompasses “sustainability.” Members of the public who packed the board room for a two-hour discussion at the Aug. 20 Selectboard meeting overwhelmingly urged the board to take action. The board eventually voted 3–2 to create the new staff position, directing staff to create a job description and recruit candidates. That job description will likely shape how the town moves...
Elayne Clift has written numerous columns supporting abortion. In a recent one, she quotes Lucy Leriche, vice president of public policy for Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, who claimed that “over 95 percent of women who have had an abortion report [feel] relief that outweighs any negative emotion they might have, even years later.” Now, I couldn't help but wonder just how Ms. Leriche reached such an astounding conclusion and why in the world Ms. Clift would quote it.
Responding to Kevin O'Keefe's Viewpoint claiming that Donald Trump bears responsibility for the uptick in mass shootings [“We are free, we are told,” Viewpoint, Aug. 7], Gerard Cloutier kindly did a quick search of databases in order to allay our fears and to defend Donald Trump from O'Keefe's supposed unfair accusations. However, his research was flawed. It is true that violent crime went down from 2017 to 2018 - in fact, violent crimes have been on a slow decline since...
Hello and good day to you, residents of lovely Windham County, Vermont! I hope things are well. While we may see a thunderstorm Wednesday evening and overnight, the only potential impactful weather I can foresee is a few localized areas of street flooding Wednesday evening and night as a cold front pushes into the region with a line of showers and maybe a thunderstorm or two. This same front may draw north some heavier rains from a tropical system destined...
Pleased with a working group's draft of a grant application for local arts projects, the Selectboard authorized the use of $15,000 for a Town Arts Fund. The new fund offers awards up to $5,000 “to enable the development and presentation of creative projects that contribute positively to the community and to the vibrancy and diversity of Brattleboro's arts and cultural landscape.” In March, The Selectboard had approved moving the draft application forward. In response to questions from the working group...
I opened my first Facebook account in 2010, as a marketing tool when my novel, Into the Wilderness, came out. In those early days of social media, Facebook didn't just connect to long out-of-touch friends, but also to new readers. As my network grew, I became caught up in the numbers, seeking and accepting connections. In 2014, I started an author page and began cross-publishing my blog posts, gaining an even wider audience. After a while, I found myself sucked...
Some comments made during the Aug. 20 Selectboard meeting discussion over the hiring of a sustainability coordinator for the town point to a disconnect between the original vision of the Town Energy Committee for turning the work of a part-time appointed town official into a properly compensated staff position. Some community members, it seemed, envision a sustainability coordinator who has broad authority to direct the Selectboard and staff on energy or sustainability actions, a vision that some proponents of the...
Epsilon Spires, the nonprofit organization charged with breathing new life into Brattleboro's Baptist Church on Main Street, will debut its fall season with Victoria Keddie's Electrona in Crystallo Fluenti on Friday, Sept. 6, at 7 p.m. Keddie, of New York City, works in varying media, exploring electromagnetic systems, media ecologies, and “the machinic body,” according to a news release. Crystallo Fluenti's composition is created as Keddie tracks the properties of orbital debris passing overhead. Much of this debris comes from...
When I recently heard more dire news about massive insect, bee, and bird decline, I decided to get with the program and - even though I'm a complete gardening novice - create a pollinator garden. At first, I put off doing so because a), I didn't really know what I was doing, b) it seemed as though it would be too much work, and c) digging up a patch of overgrown weeds and cutting out grass sod isn't my idea...