I hope everyone had a great New Year, and that you haven’t broken your New Year’s resolutions yet. If you have, I hope you are not beating yourself up about it. There will be another New Year at the end of 2016. Plenty of time. The good news is the Patriots will be in the playoffs; the bad news is the team is so decimated by injury that they may not last that long. I don’t want to jinx them, but I also don’t want to get my hopes up, and my hopes were pretty much shattered after their game against the Dolphins on Sunday. Don’t they know we are in desperate need of the football season to last as long as possible so that we have something to do in January?
At the library this week: On Thursday, Jan. 7, Juli Vanderhoop will give a gluten-free cooking demonstration at 5:30 pm. This will be held across the street at the Old Town Hall; everyone is welcome. On Saturday, Jan. 9, from 11 am to 3 pm, kids can come to the library and make 3D snowmen out of Styrofoam balls. As always, the After School Club is on Tuesdays at 4 pm, and Story Time is on Thursdays at 3:30 pm.
Pathways is continuing with their winter season! It was unclear with the passing of Marianne Goldberg, the founder of Pathways, if they were going to continue on, but apparently it was Marianne’s wish that they continue. On Tuesdays there will be an ongoing Writing and Poetry series; writers are welcome to come and share their work. As always, admission is free and refreshments will be served. Also, the Pathways gift shop is still up and running, most days from 11 am to 5:30 pm. Pathways is closed on Wednesday and Sunday.
Was one of your New Year’s resolutions to do more public service? Well, now’s your chance. There are vacancies on several important boards and committees in Aquinnah, and the selectmen would like to fill them. Some of these community review boards meet on an ad hoc basis, seasonally or once a month, depending on the responsibilities and tasks assigned to them. The appointments are for one year, and reappointments occur in June. All of them have an administrative assistant working with them, so the tasks of agenda formulation, posting meeting notices, and minute-taking are handled by town hall staff. If you are interested in serving on any of the committees below, you should contact Adam Wilson at the Town Hall at aqbos@comcast.net. Adam can give you a description of all the committees and the duties associated with them.
Here are the vacancies: Parks & Recreation Committee (three members), Finance Advisory Committee (one to two members), and Historic Buildings Committee (one member).
Welcome back to the Gerhard family, who just returned from spending the holidays in Tuscany, Umbria, and Rome. They had a fabulous time. Welcome back also to Anja May and her boys Fynn and Yossi, who spent Christmas and New Year’s in Germany and Switzerland. I haven’t heard about their trip yet, but I know they saw the boys’ grandparents, so I’m guessing there was a lot of presents and fawning. Ella Mahoney is here on the last bit of her winter holiday from school; she spent New Year’s in Iceland! And last, I saw Steve and Eva Weinstein on the first part of their journey to Florida, where they will spend the winter in the warmth of the southern sun.
