There could be as many as 592 pipes playing at the West Tisbury Congregational Church on Sunday, Dec. 16, at the 50th anniversary celebration of the church organ beginning at 3 p.m. And among those in the audience will be the man who built the organ, Fritz Noack, of Noack Organ Company, now located in Georgetown. Mr. Noack was 25 years old then and this was his fourth original organ.

After five years of planning, construction and a complicated move, the county communications center has begun operations at its new location in the basement of the community corrections center at the airport.

The changeover took place last Thursday, Dec. 6, and included help from Barnstable County Sheriffs department communication center, according to sheriff Michael A. McCormack.

The $1.5 million project, funded mostly by state grants, brings the center into the digital age, the sheriff said. The facility handles thousands of calls a year.

Bay scallops are again being shipped to the mainland after a slowdown in the market two weeks ago. On Nov. 30, several local handlers of wholesale seafood reported having difficulty finding markets on the mainland, with some shellfishermen told to stay out of the waters until demand increased.

As of last week, lines to the mainland had been reopened.

With the New England groundfishery now a bona fide federal disaster, fisheries managers are preparing to make drastic cuts to future allotments for cod and yellowtail flounder before the end of the year.

On Dec. 20 the New England Fishery Management Council will meet in Wakefield and is expected to cut up to 80 per cent of fishing allotments for cod and yellowtail flounder for the coming year. If they are approved, the cuts will take effect May 1, 2013.

The end of our darkest days is near — nearer, in fact, than you may have been lead to believe.

As of Friday, the sun is setting at 4:11 p.m., the earliest it will set on the Vineyard for the rest of the year. Sunsets will start getting later in the afternoon beginning on Dec. 15, when the sun will set at 4:12 p.m.

Fans of local bay scallops are in luck; commercial fishermen, not so much.