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Brattleboro Time Trade Listings – Week of July 26

by Brattleboro Time Trade | Other

Brattleboro Time Trade:   Exchanging services, creating connections, strengthening communities, one hour at a time.  See below for more exciting Upcoming Events and learn what Time Trade can do for you!

How Time Trade Works: You do something for someone and earn
time credits for your “bank,” which you can then put towards someone else doing something for you! It’s that simple – and amazing!

This week’s fabulous listings, brought to you from sunset on the porch:

OFFERS (i.e. things people could do for you):

Egyptian Walking Onion Plants
Vegan Raw Cookbook
Clean Sod and Garden Soil Available
Single Kayak(S) Loan

Spectacular Niagara

by Lise | Travel

Americans love a realistic spectacle, the more realistic the better.  So says Umberto Eco in Travels in Hyper Reality, a survey of American theme parks and attractions that argues the premise that for Americans, the real is not real enough, and that enhanced reality (or even enhanced unreality) are sometimes better than the thing itself.  One could certainly make that case with the theme park called Niagara Falls, which I was fortunate enough to visit recently at night, when Niagara transitions from mere natural wonder into a 20th century spectacular worthy of Las Vegas.

Weekend Comedy Series: Maria Bamford

by cgrotke | Entertainment

It’s time for Comedy Christmas in July, featuring Maria Bamford’s “One-Hour Homemade Christmas Stand-up Special.”

This is hard to describe, and probably isn’t for everyone, but for those who enjoy twisty journeys through the brain, excursions into the uncomfortable, and explorations of the surreal, you may like this quite a bit.

I-91 Brattleboro Bridge Replacement Project Update: Week of July 26

by Not Signed In | Town Plan

Blasting operations on the north side of the new bridge will begin the week of August 3rd. Roughly 15 separate 10-minute blasts will be needed to complete the work. The blasting will be conducted on weekdays for approximately 3 weeks; the target time for the blasts is between 1:30-2:00 pm. The contractor will need 5 minutes to verify clear lanes of travel. To ensure travelers’ safety, rolling roadblocks will be implemented on I91 in each direction. Sound impacts associated with the blasting will be minimal. More details to follow.

I-91

Please see above re blasting scheduled to start the week of August 3rd.

5K for Food to Benefit Our Place Food Shelf

by NewsWriter | Recreation & Sports

Our Place Drop-In Center in Bellows Falls is hosting a 5K race and walk to benefit its food programs Saturday, Aug. 15 at Vermont Academy in Saxtons River.

The 5K for Food will get under way at 9 a.m. over the trails at VA and will include a cool route through the woods, perfect for an August day. Registration begins at 8 a.m. at the Chivers Center on Shepare Lane.

The registration fee is $15, with a maximum of $30 per family.

The event will raise money to help stock the shelves at Our Place, which serves approximately 175 local families a month. Donations of non-perishable food will be accepted at the 5K.

Superhero Crime Solvers

by Brooks Memorial Library | Family

The superheroes need your help.

A medallion was stolen by some villains from the libary and they need the help of the superhero crime sovlers to find out who stole it.

Come to the library on Tuesday, July 28th for either a morning session from 10:30-11:30 or an afternoon session from 2:00-3:00.

Please call (802)-254-5290 x110 or email cr@brookslibraryvt.org to pre-register for either sessions in this event.

Meet Your Local Hero Event

by Brooks Memorial Library | Family

Come to the municipal lot, behind the library, on Saturday, July 25th from 10:00-12:00 to meet some local heroes and check out their vehicles.

Look at a firetruck or an ambulance. Check-out a police car or a dump truck from public works. See how high a utility truck from Green Mountain Power can go.

Stop by on Saturday to look at all these great vehicles and thank the people who operate them. 

Gang of Motorcycling Investors to Invade Brattleboro, Hear Business Funding Pitches

by MartinLangeveld | Business

Six Windham County startup businesses will pitch their ideas to a “gang” of motorcycling investors, entrepreneurs and advisors who are stopping in Brattleboro on Tuesday, Aug. 4, at 10 a.m.

The event, which will take place at the Robert H. Gibson River Garden, is part of the second annual FreshTracks Road Pitch, a four-day motorcycle tour, in which the riders make stops in eight Vermont towns to listen to entrepreneurs pitching their business concepts.

The hosts of the Brattleboro stop are Strolling of the Heifers and Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation, with sponsorship support from Marlboro College Graduate School. The pitch portion of the event, from 10 a.m. until about noon, is open to the public.

Homo Sapiens for Dummies

by spinoza | Books

If you are ‘in the market’ for a primer that lays out in compelling prose the path humans have taken in our evolution, showing longstanding motives and habits, causes and effects of civilizations, and possible directions for the near and far future, I enthusiastically recommend “Sapiens”, by Yuval Noah Harari.

My post is titled facetiously, because here we have an inspiring and impressive handbook that breaks molds rather than follows formula. My title makes reference to the uncanny clarity and concision in which the author tackles immense and charged subjects.

Blue Cross Blue Shield Requesting 8.4% Rate Increases

by ESchwartz | Activism

The Affordable Care Act, in spite of its name, is not making health care affordable for many Vermont residents. One in five people in Vermont are struggling with medical bills. Meanwhile, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont, as a “non-profit” company, will receive a tax break of over $15 million this year, while ten of its executives are paid up to half a million dollars each.

BCBS has asked the Green Mountain Care Board (GMCB) to approve a premium increase averaging at 8.4%, with increases of up to 14.3% on some plans. This is considerably more than most people’s wages rise in a year, so this increase, if granted, will be a huge setback for many people who purchase health insurance through Vermont Health Connect. This big win for the insurance company will do nothing to increase in access to care, especially for people on basic plans with high deductibles and co-pays. If anything points to the need to get the insurance industry out of health care, it is the effrontery of BCBS’s request for premium increases that will make health care less, not more affordable.

Mushroom Foraging Workshops Through the Brattleboro Food Co-op

by Not Signed In | Home & Garden

The Brattleboro Food Co-op (BFC) is sponsoring a series of four wild mushroom foraging workshops this summer and fall. Led by Justin Garner, a clinical herbalist and founder of Sweet Flag Medicinals, each workshop will focus on whatever edible fungus is popping up in that particular month. Precautions will be taught for harvesting wild mushrooms, as well as cooking instructions and some on the ecology, natural history, flavor and medicinal value of the different species.

A Presidential Candidate – Complete List July 2015

by cgrotke | Politics

How many candidates do you think have declared their intentions to run for president in 2016? Go ahead and guess.

Fifteen? Twenty? Twenty five?  Thirty?  Place your bets, now.

The answer, according the the Federal Election Commision website, is that over 500 citizens have stepped forward for your consideration.

There are some great names on this list, too. Are we ready as a nation for President Sydneys Voluptous Buttocks? Or how about President President Emperor Caesar (President is a first name as well as a title here.)

Windham County Economic Development Program Relaunch

by Not Signed In | Economics

The Agency of Commerce and Community Development (ACCD) and the Windham County Advisory Council are pleased to announce the relaunch of the . 

ACCD has worked closely with state and regional partners to redesign the program to ensure greater local and regional participation in the process, simplify the application process – especially for businesses – and improve communication about the program to the region.  The regional partners have formed a consisting of BDCC, WRC, SeVEDS, SBDC, ACCD, municipalities with designated downtowns – Brattleboro, Wilmington, Rockingham – plus Vernon.

State Rep. Valerie Stewart Serving Lunches at Living Memorial Park to Area Youth

by Not Signed In | Food

July 23rd and 30th, Vermont State Representative Valerie Stewart will be at Living Memorial Park serving lunches to area youth as part of the Windham Southeast Supervisory Union’s Summer Food Service Program. The WSESU runs the Summer Food Program to ensure that children and teens have access to healthy food when school is not is session. Any child, 18 or younger, can find a free breakfast, lunch or dinner at various sites around Brattleboro or Guilford. Anyone can text ‘FOOD’ to 877-877 to find the site closest to them.

Two Recent Hit & Runs in Brattleboro

by SK-B | Police & Fire

From the Police Log: 

July 20, 2015

Officer J. Hamilton

On July 17th 2015 at approximately 1300 hours Officers of the Brattleboro Police Department investigated a hit and run on a pedestrian in the area of the intersection between Elliot St., Frost St., Bridge St., Williams St. and Union St. The operator of the vehicle was described as having should-length blond hair. The vehicle was described as a green Honda Civic with a Vermont plate on the back only. Anyone with information about the suspect operator or vehicle please contact the Brattleboro Police Department at (802)257-7950.

Townshend Web Site

by rick | West River Valley

The Townshend website has been redeveloped as a private venture. Local Board minutes, information, links to meeting videos, are being posted currently for anyone who is interested. The email list has been reinstated as well for items like agendas or important, time sensitive, information. More past documents will be uploaded as time goes by but much has been posted as of this note. 

http://www.unofficialtownshendvt.net/

Sanders Introduces Bill for $15-an-Hour Minimum Wage

by Not Signed In | Politics

WASHINGTON, July 22 – Addressing hundreds of low-wage workers who have gone on strike for a living wage, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said legislation he introduced today would raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.

“It is a national disgrace that millions of full-time workers are living in poverty and millions more are forced to work two or three jobs just to pay their bills,” Sanders said at the outdoor rally near the Capitol. “In the year 2015, a job must lift workers out of poverty, not keep them in it. The current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour is a starvation wage and must be raised to a living wage.”