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Nelson School District Meeting Friday, March 4 Nelson Town Meeting Tuesday, March 8 Town Meeting Warrant Caucus January 25, 7:00 p.m.
FIFTY YEARS IN MUNSONVILLE SEASONS by D. Asa Bennett ummers during the mid to late seventies saw exciting times on windy, Sunday afternoons. With about four or five lightning class sailboats and several others of various sizes, racing regattas formed and competed in the full gamut of wind conditions available on Granite Lake. Gentle to no wind resulted in more drifting than racing and at least one such warm day ended in a water balloon exchange as competing boats drifted past each other both firing broadsides of missiles which burst with a refreshing gush of cool water. Then there was the opposite extreme, northwest winds would whip the lake into a frothy, frenzy of whitecaps atop three foot waves. This always began a race with a wild time at the start line with all boats vying for a space between starting line buoys, barely large enough for two or three boats, but all vying at the instant the “start” horn blew. There were early starts, collisions, and failures to yield right of way, all of which drew penalties enforced by the “Committee" boat standing by the start line. Spinnakers deployed in these conditions were always exciting and sometimes disastrous. One of those blustery days caused a main stay on one boat, weakened from corrosion, to fail and resulted in breaking the mast – a disastrous end for that racer. On another day our Lightning was flying a Genoa Jib on a broad reach and really steaming along at a good speed when the compressive load on the jim pole supporting the tail of the sail became too great in a sudden gust and it exploded in splinters with a resounding report.
S NELSON COMMUNITY FORUM A GREAT SUCCESS Karen Tolman, Steering Committee Member he work of the Nelson Community Forum on September 17 & 18, 2010, is over and now the work toward its resultant goals has begun. I think all involved would say that it was a great success, our goals were reached, and it was a good time. The event was a phenomenal show of community interest and support with well over 100 participants, many of whom also volunteered to help with the planning aspect. Thank you all. The Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music was an ideal venue for accommodating the Forum, which was facilitated by Jack Calhoun of Antioch New England Institute. Thank you Apple Hill for your generosity, and thank you Jack for your many hours of guidance through this process. On Friday night we gathered for registration and a potluck supper. Then, with dessert barely digesting, as we were settling down to begin the facilitated work of the evening, the power went out! But the power of the participants surged on as we literally and figuratively lit our way through the rest of the evening. We began with a couple of brief presentations: opening comments by Rick Church (a printed copy is available at
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the library), and current demographic information by Lisa Murphy of the Southwest Regional Planning Commission both accompanied by Warren Hammack on the flashlight. We continued with an overview of the forum process upon which we were about to embark. With easels and flip charts at the ready, and by now a back-up generator providing a wee bit of light, Jack led us through a brief calling-out from the floor of what we currently like about Nelson and what we'd like to see going forward. Then we counted off around the room to form ten groups. Each group was given a broadly defined topic to discuss: for example, (continued on page 3)
(continued on page 4) Participants register for the Community Forum.