Healthcare Jamboree in Brattleboro

On May 9 the Vermont Workers’ Center will host a Healthcare Jamboree. The event will take place from 5:30-8:00 p.m. at the Brattleboro Savings & Loan Community Room, 221 Main St., Brattleboro (rear entrance). People who have questions about healthcare or who are struggling with the healthcare system, costs or other barriers to care can get information about local resources and connect with others who are organizing for the human right to healthcare.

The Healthcare Navigator from SEVCA will be on hand to help with health insurance questions. There will also be representatives from the Inclusion Center, VT Psychiatric Survivors, the VT Department of Health, and other local groups sharing their resources.


Selectboard Meeting Notes – Opioids, Broadband, and a Dump Truck

Brattleboro selectboard may7-2019

The Brattleboro Selectboard was reduced to four members for their meeting Tuesday, and Tim Wessel sat in as Chair for the evening. They managed to get through a long agenda with relative efficiency.

A new goal to examine the impact of the opioid epidemic in Brattleboro is being considered, as is a new handicap parking space on the east side of Main Street. The state may have programs that might eventually help Brattleboro with broadband issues, Brattleboro is paving streets in Esteyville and buying a new dump truck, and much more.


Les Poules a Colin and Pipers Den at Next Stage on Friday, May 17

Next Stage Arts Project and Twilight Music present an evening of traditional and contemporary Scottish, Quebecois and world music from New England and Canada by Les Poules à Colin and Pipers Den at Next Stage on Friday, May 17 at 7:30 pm.

Les Poules à Colin is a Montreal-based quintet that, despite the young ages of its member (22 to 27), has been touring Canada, the US, Europe, the UK, Australia and Africa for over eight years.  Their sound seamlessly blends music drawn from some of Quebec’s finest trad musicians with North American influences that range from old-time to jazz.


Six Suggestions for Shorter Brattleboro Selectboard Meetings

Selectboard meetings can drag on. Meetings that start at 6:15 pm often end after 9 pm. It’s not as bad as the record-setting meeting of the mid-aughts that lasted well past midnight, but three hours is a long regular meeting, especially when board members may have met for an hour prior in Executive Session.

When meetings go on too long, participants lose energy and the quality of debate and discussion drops. Important issues can get rushed if they come late on an agenda.


Mothers Day Brunch Sunday in Guilford

Broad Brook Grange will present its 23rd annual Mother’s Day Brunch on Sunday, May 12, from 7:00 am to 1:00 pm at the Broad Brook Community Center in Guilford.

The all-you-can-eat brunch features eggs and omelettes, any style, made to order. Also on the menu are pancakes, French toast, sausage, bacon and home fries, with Guilford maple syrup. Other treats include home-baked coffee cakes and other baked goods, fresh fruit salad, and bread for toasting. A selection of juices will be available, along with coffee, teas and milk.


Patty Carpenter & Verandah Porche with Jon Weeks and Wheeler Laird perform in Bellows Falls

Patty Carpenter & Verandah Porche, lifelong friends and collaborators who are no strangers to Brattleboro, will be playing a listening event at Stage 33 live in Bellows Falls with special guests Jon Weeks and Wheeler Laird on Sunday, May 19.

They’ll be playing some of the songs they’ve written since the Dysfunctional Family Jazz Band’s “Come Over” CD, which they also co-composed.


Brattleboro Women’s Chorus Concerts this Weekend: Walk With Me

The Brattleboro Women’s Chorus will present their 23rd annual spring concert, “Walk With Me,” on Mother’s Day weekend at Centre Congregational Church. Joining director Becky Graber and the 80-voice chorus of women will be Cathy Martin on piano and Connie Green on flute.

Last summer, a group of singers from the chorus traveled to Grand Rapids, Michigan to participate in the Sister Singers Festival, a gathering of women’s choruses from across the country. The “Walk With Me” repertoire was inspired by that trip and features songs of travel, migration, community, and home. One of the concert’s songs, “Winnebago” by David Maddux, about an obvious means of hitting the road, was heard at the festival.


BCTV Schedules – Week of 5/6/19

BCTV Channel 8 schedule for the week of 5/6/19

Monday, May 6, 2019

4:15 am VT Master Anglers – S01E03 – Freshwater Drum
4:30 am 350 VT – 65 Mile Next Steps Climate Solutions Walk
5:00 am Winston Prouty presents – Family Matters Ep 20 – Elisha Underwood
5:30 am BCTV Open Studio – 2019 Strolling of the Heifers Preview
6:25 am BCTV Open Studio – 2019 Slow Living Summit Preview


Timeline for Windham Southeast School District Merger

Windham Southeast School District (WSESD) (Brattleboro, Dummerston, Guilford, Putney) Current Timeline for Merger (without legislative or court action)

Merged Board Elections

Tuesday, May 21, 2019

Election for representatives to the WSESD School Board, by Australian ballot. Polls open in each Town 8am-7pm. Registered voters in each of the four towns will cast ballots to select school board members for all four towns. Each town will have two voting members on the merged board. Merged board members from the four towns will represent everyone in the merged district. Early voting begins May 1, 2019.


Vt Watercolor Society Exhibit Opens May 4 at 2:00

West Brattleboro, Vt. — The Arts Committee of All Souls Church invites the general public to an opening reception at West Village Meeting House on Saturday, May 4, 2:00-4:00 p.m., for “The Flow of Watercolor,” an exhibit by nine members of the Connecticut Valley Hub of the Vermont Watercolor Society (VWS). Showing their works in the foyer and other gallery spaces through the end of June are Carolyn Allbee, Carole-Anne Centre, Maisie Crowther, Nancy DiMauro, John Dimick, Kathy Greve, Steve Lloyd, Molly Martin, and Cath Stockbridge.

A 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, VWS was founded by a small group of painters in 1995 and today has over 240 members throughout the state. The group’s mission is to promote awareness and appreciation of watercolor to its membership at all levels of ability and to the community by providing opportunities and venues for participation, education, fellowship, and exhibitions.


AFSCME-VT Calls For Picket Line Against Scott Walker 5/30/19

Rutland, Vermont, 2019 -The Vermont Republican Party has invited former Union-busting Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to talk at a private fundraiser on May 30th, in Burlington at the Hilton Hotel on Battery Street. And while Vermonters are struggling to win a basic $15 an hour livable wage for all, wealthy VIP donors will be paying $1000 a seat to hear how Vermont too should follow his anti-Union lead. This is unacceptable.

Scott Walker is rabidly anti-Union. While Governor he rolled back foundational Union rights for workers in Wisconsin, making that state “right to work,” and essentially stripping all meaningful collective bargaining rights away from public sector workers.


VFW $6 Lunch Specials Open to the Public 5-6 to 5-10

The Brattleboro VFW located at 40 Black Mountain Road is open to the public for lunch. Lunch is served Mon-Fri from 11:30 – 1:30. Specials listed below are only $6 a plate. Hand made burger, fries, sweet potato fries, wings, onion rings, soups and sandwiches are also available. Take outs available by calling 257-0438

Mon – liver & onions w/ mashed potatoes & veg


Past Life Regression – Believe It or Not

Past Life Regression and Age Regression use hypnosis to help you retrieve forgotten memories from this life or from a different life from the past. Regressions are often used to help a client remember a traumatic past event, which remains unresolved in the subconscious mind and results in anxieties or phobias which seem to have no apparent cause. When the forgotten memory is made conscious and brought to a conscious level of understanding, the phobia or anxiety often disappears. In the case of past life regressions, it is held that memories from before the current life can be retrieved.


Brattleboro Selectboard Agenda and Notes – May 7, 2019

A packed agenda awaits the Brattleboro Selectboard for their first regular meeting of May. Brattleboro broadband possibilities and a handicapped parking space on Main Street are just two items of note.

They’ll also talk about liquor licenses for new and old establishments. They will buy a dump truck, authorize improvements to the parking garage, plan summer paving, and discuss goals and town operations. There are grants to apply for, farm taxes to be stabilized, meetings to cancel, and more. And you can bring up other items during public participation.


Brattleboro ADA Committee Meeting Agenda

The Brattleboro ADA Advisory Committee will meet on Friday, May 10, 2019, at 9:00am in the Hanna Cosman Meeting Room at the Municipal Center.

NOTE:  The monthly meeting of the Brattleboro Energy Committee has been RESCHEDULED from May 6 to Monday, May 13, 2019, at 6:00pm in the Brattleboro Food Co-Op Community Room.


Free Author Talk at Brooks Library: Independence Corrupted

Join us at 7 pm on Monday, May 6th,  in the Main Reading Room at Brooks Memorial Library,  as author Charles Schudson presents a FREE presentation about his new book, Independence Corrupted: How America’s Judges Make Their Decisions.

With twenty-two years in America’s courts, Judge Schudson knows the factors affecting judicial decision-making.  With scholarship and impassioned accounts of compelling cases, he brings readers behind the trial bench to see judges analyzing actual trials and sentencings – of abortion protesters, sex predators, murderers, white supremacists….


Free Hip Hop Concert with Rebel Diaz

Join us at 8 pm on Friday, May 10th, as Brooks Memorial Library hosts a kid-friendly concert by hip hop artists, Rebel Diaz! Doors will open at 7:30 pm.

Rebel Diaz is a political hip hop duo out of the Bronx, New York and Chicago, IL consisting of the Chilean brothers Rodstarz (Rodrigo Venegas) and G1 (Gonzalo Venegas). Rebel Diaz uses their music as an organizing tool and to spread knowledge about injustice.


Brooks Memorial Library Children’s Room will be Closed: Week of May 6th

Brooks Memorial Library will be undergoing some minor renovations in May, beginning with new ceiling tiles in the Children’s Room.

Unfortunately, there is no way to safely remain open during this process, so beginning May 6th, the Children’s Room will be closed for about a week. You will still be able to enter the library from the second floor entrance, and use the elevator or stairs to access materials on the Mezzanine, and in the Main Reading Room.