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41st Christmas at Christ Church

by fomag | Music

Guilford, Vt. – Friends of Music’s 41st Annual Christmas at Christ Church program is set for 8:00 p.m. on Friday, December 13, and 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, December 15—note this departure from past years’ schedule for the reprise performance. Christ Church is at the corner of Rt. 5 south and Melendy Hill Road in the Algiers Village of Guilford.

        “Brightest & Best: Music to Welcome the Holy Child” is this season’s theme for the program. Since mid-September, Tom Baehr has been conducting rehearsals with sixteen Guilford Chamber Singers. Many have sung with Friends of Music for a long time, and others are new to this annual “pick-up” group but sing with other choirs and choruses in the area.

43rd Community Messiah Sing: A Benefit for the Homeless

by fomag | Music

Brattleboro, Vt. – Friends of Music at Guilford, for a 43rd year, invites singers and music lovers in the Tri-State region to start their holiday season with its annual Community Messiah Sing on the first Saturday in December. Set again at Centre Congregational Church, 193 Main Street in Brattleboro, the Sing’s permanent home since 1982, the event is a benefit for agencies serving the area’s homeless.

        This year the first Saturday falls on December 7, and the program is set to begin as usual at 1:00 p.m. with Clark Anderson at the helm as conductor for a third season. William McKim graciously stepped in for a 28th year as Sing organist when Christian Huebner, Centre Church’s resident organ master, learned that his ministerial ordination ceremony was set for the same afternoon. Messrs. Anderson and McKim will lead the assembled singers through the Christmas portion of Handel’s masterwork, plus a few other favorite sections from Parts II and III.

AIDS Day?

by Zippy | Other

“There was no excuse, in this country and in this time, for the spread of a deadly new epidemic.  For this was a time in which the United States boasted the world’s most sophisticated medicine and the world’s most extensive public health system, geared to eliminate such pestilence form our national life. When the virus appeared, the world’s richest nation housed the most lavishly financed scientific research establishments-both inside the vast governmental health bureaucracy and in other institutions – to investigate new diseases and quickly bring them under control.”

– Journalist/ Historian Randy Shilts in ‘And The Band Played On.’   

Cleaning Up Vermont Yankee 12/3/13

by Safe and Green Campaign | News & Information

The state of Vermont and Entergy are engaging in confidential negotiations about the future of the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor (and the future of our region). As citizens we are told very little. State officials are quoted as saying they are “not dealing much with the past” and “everything is on the table.”

Because negotiations are happening behind closed doors, should we just sit back and trust Entergy and the state to make a deal? What we can do is educate ourselves best as we can, and let our state officials and Entergy know what, for instance, we do not want “on the table.” The Safe and Green Campaign is hosting “Cleaning Up Vermont Yankee,” a free educational panel, on Tuesday, December 3, to give people information about the process and the options. Three panelists will present information followed by Q&A and discussion.

A State of Collapse – The Threat of Being Functionally Obsolete

by Vidda | Op/Ed

When you walk across the bridge to Hinsdale you feel the bridge vibrating underfoot. It is a sustained motion, that combined with the obviously “insufficient weight limits” might give the pedestrian pause to be concerned in what is an otherwise peaceful, scenic river view.

What the long-term overweight loads and steady shaking does to the bridge structure is another matter.

Brattleboro Selectboard Agenda and Notes – December 3 and 5, 2013

by cgrotke | Town News

Building a Better Brattleboro will come before the Brattleboro Selectboard at their next Tuesday meeting to present the downtown organization’s new budget, sans River Garden for the first time.

The board will also take up decades-old Farmland and Agricultural Land issues, look at errors and omissions to the Grand List, consider more energy audits for town buildings, hear about downtown program strategies from a state agency, and more.

If there’s something you’d like to discuss that isn’t on the agenda, there’s time for that during Public Participation. You can attend in person, watch on BCTV, or get the highlights here the day after.

BCTV Channel 8 & 10 Schedules for the Week of 12/2/13

by BCTVProg | Media

BCTV Ch 8 Schedule for the week of 12/2/13

                   Monday December 2                

12:00 am      Vermont Arts Summit – Getting To Market

1:18 am       That Was the Week That Was- Malayaka House Uganda

2:00 am       FSTV Overnight

4:00 am       Green Mountain Vets For Peace – Ep. 126

5:00 am       Dartmouth CMS: Protection from Melanoma

5:15 am       Dartmouth CMS: Protection from Melanoma Pt. 2

150 Years Ago (1863 11/27-11/30)

by BusyMom | History

Brattleboro, Nov. 27th,
1863.

Dearest wife –

I improve the present moment in writing. I should have done so two days sooner but could not. Was paid two months pay Monday. I shall send you twenty dollars. Day before yesterday was on guard; took my ink and paper with me to the guard house thinking to write to you between the reliefes, but such a time to be on guard! Soldiers just paid off, and Thanksgiving so close at hand.

Stroll Launches Brown Bag Lunch Series at River Garden; First Event Features Singer Jim Knapp

by MartinLangeveld | Town News

In the first of a planned series of “brown bag lunches” at the Robert H. Gibson River Garden, Strolling of the Heifers is presenting singer-songwriter Jim Knapp from noon to 1 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 4.

Knapp will be playing guitar on Wednesday, but he also plays banjo and mandolin.  He will be playing original Vermont songs as well as covers of country and folk songs.  He has played with the Town Hall Boys and the Bills Band and refers to himself as “the ol’ woodchuck”.

The event is free and open to the public. It is suggested that people bring their lunch to eat while they enjoy the music. Additional events in the series will be announced soon.

Weekend Concert Series: Tuba Skinny

by cgrotke | Entertainment

This week we feature Tuba Skinny, a band from New Orleans. I don’t know much about them, other than my dad played me a bit of them from his iPhone this week.

This seems to be recorded in Australia for a live radio program.

Eating Worms

by tomaidh | Other

I was just listening to actor George Takei (Mr. Sulu, helmsman of the USS Enterprise) on the radio, as he related some stories of his childhood in which his family was interned in a California concentration camp.

He explained: “We (his family) were Americans. My mother was from Sacramento. My father was a San Franciscan. I and my brothers were born in Los Angeles. But because we looked like the people that bombed Pearl Harbor, they threw us into jail.”

Brattleboro Rotary Club’s 48th Annual Christmas Tree Fundraiser Begins on Saturday, November 30

by Not Signed In | Business

BRATTLEBORO, VT – The Christmas trees are coming! The Christmas trees are coming!

On Saturday, November 30, the 484th annual Brattleboro Rotary Club Christmas Tree Fundraiser officially begins.

Since 1965, the Brattleboro Rotary Club has sold Christmas trees as a fundraiser for local student scholarships, and this year is no different!

Vermont-grown trees of all shapes and sizes will be sold daily in front of Brattleboro Bowl on Putney Road from 11am to 6pm. Sales will begin the Saturday after Thanksgiving and continue until the trees are gone.

The Brattleboro Rotary Club, founded in 1950, is an active community service club of 80+ members who engage in community and human service projects both locally and internationally.

150 Years Ago (1863 11/17)

by BusyMom | History

Brattleboro, Nov. 17th, 1863.

Dear wife –

It rains and has rained all night, no drill and not on guard, so have a good time to write. I did not go over to Hinsdale Sunday. It rained all night Saturday and all day Sunday. Monday it was warm and pleasant, but commenced raining when we were on dress parade, and has rained ever since I commenced this morning, but there has been so much card playing around my bunk that I had to give up writing. After dinner they took their places again with a new reinforcement. I told them to leave, or I would send their cards into the stove and a pack of fools after them, took it in good and evacuated. I have a pretty good place to write. My bunk is by a window, and the boys thought that the had got a fine place for Euchre, but they must keep clear, or I shall send them kiteing. The boys are a pretty good set, but the everlasting Euchre, I am so sick of it that I wish that I had every card in the world, that they would find the fire pretty quick.

150 Years Ago (1863 10/29)

by BusyMom | History

Brattleboro, Oct. 29th, 1863

Dear Abiah, –

I wrote to you last Saturday, and promised in that to write you Monday but I did not keep my promise. I could not get a chance to write. I wrote to Mr. Cole, but I had to write with a pencil, but today I have a chance and mean to improve it. I went to Hinsdale Sunday found Mary Ann better but Susan’s little girl very sick. Poor little thing she suffered very much. She died Sunday night about 6 o’clock. Mr. Ballard came over Monday and told me yesterday. I got a pass and went to the funeral. It was at the house at 10 o’clock. I got leave to stop until after dress parade. I staid until evening. Fred came and brought me over to the Camp. I like him very much. He is a quiet, social intelligent man. he is heartily sick of farming. Is determined to sell his farm. He now thinks of getting some business near home where he can go home Saturday nights.

Brattleboro Committee Meetings Scheduled

by Not Signed In | Town News

The Brattleboro Representative Town Meeting Human Services Review Committee will meet on Tuesday, December 3, 2013 at 6:30pm at 175 South Main Street.

The Brattleboro Representative Town Meeting Finance Committee will meet on Thursday, December 5, 2013 at 4:30pm in the Selectboard meeting room at the Municipal Center.

Jan Anderson
Executive Secretary
Brattleboro Town Manager’s Office
(802) 251-8100

I-91 Brattleboro Bridge Replacement Project Update – Week of December 1, 2013

by Not Signed In | Town Plan

I-91

Northbound I-91 traffic has been relocated onto the southbound bridge. Traffic will remain reduced to one lane in each direction on I-91 until completion of the new bridge in the Fall of 2015.

Night work will resume on Monday, December 2nd, and will continue Sunday through Thursday, and occasionally Friday, nights for the next several months, until demolition is complete.

Proposed Statewide Policy on Use of Conducted Electrical Weapons (Tasers): Public Comment Deadline 12/4/2013

by Norsehorse | State News

Law Enforcement Advisory Board (LEAB) Proposed Statewide Policy on Use of Conducted Electrical Weapons (CEWs: aka Stun Guns aka Tasers; documents available online via Google Drive; no sign in required; 15 pages, including background information page), .

Public Comment Deadline: Wednesday, December 4, 2013

The iBrattleboro Thanksgiving Hotline

by Julia Beard | Food

Once again, we will be monitoring this thread to help you should you need a hand or a remedy in your holiday cooking adventures. iBratt is full of foodies, and at least one of us will be here throughout the morning and early afternoon. So don’t be shy, we’re here to help.

Happy Thanksgiving!