Community
On a recent Monday afternoon the Makos youth swim team is practicing its freestyle strokes, swimming up and down the lanes of the YMCA, as co-coach Rainy Goodale, 42, demonstrates proper technique by making slicing motions though the air. A group of swim-capped youngsters watches, trying to learn by osmosis.
This weekend Mrs. Goodale will travel with the team to Eastham for the annual Southeastern Massachusetts Swim League distance meet. But the sport has taken her far outside the state lines of Massachusetts
Sometime last week in the evening or pre-dawn hours, a mother cat and two tiny four-week-old kittens were left on the doorstep of the Animal Shelter of Martha’s Vineyard. Luckily Janelle from the Vineyard Vet Clinic was coming to work early and found the little family and took them inside the clinic until they could be brought into the shelter. The shelter does not question why animals have to be given up, but it is cruel and unacceptable to leave them out in the cold.
The Unitarian Universalist church in Vineyard Haven hosts Robert Murphy, a human rights advocate who works with environmentalists and religious leaders, this Sunday, Jan. 27. Mr. Murphy is a graduate of the Boston University School of Public Health and the Harvard Divinity School. He has worked with several labor unions, including the United Farm Workers in California and the Farm Labor Organizing Committee in North Carolina; was a Red Cross shelter manager during six hurricanes on the Outer Banks and in 2000 became the Unitarian Universalist minister in Falmouth.
Have an old wood stove on hand? The state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs is offering up to $800,000 in rebates for the replacement of old, inefficient wood or coal-burning stoves for newer ones. To qualify, residents must have an existing woodstove to trade in and must receive approval for a rebate before purchasing the new woodstove.
This week Adult and Community Education (ACE MV) begins its winter course offerings. Many of the courses include college credit and thanks to the MV Family Center, all Thursday evening ACE MV classes at the regional high school include free childcare.
Cape Cod Community College (CCCC) is offering PSY 101-67: General Psychology through ACE MV. This three credit course is required for nursing and many health programs and meets the social/behavioral science requirement for associate degree concentrations. The class begins Thursday, Jan. 31.
From the gleaming russet wood of pint-sized instruments, to the shining buckles on children’s dress shoes, to the carefully-practiced notes of the Hallelujah Chorus, Thursday night’s All-Island Winter Strings Concert was full of polish. About 150 students participate in the strings program each year, learning violin, viola, cello and — in some cases — bass under the instruction of Nancy Jephcote and Chelsea Pennebaker.