Thetford Town
Newsletter
No.
46 DECEMBER 2007
RECYCLING
REMINDER
The company that picks up our
paper products does not want GIFT WRAP included. PLEASE put gift wrap
with your regular trash that goes into the truck. Thank you again for all
your recycling efforts. Have a great holiday season.
Submitted by Frank Bonnett
RECREATION PROGRAM
NOTES
All recreation program
information may be viewed at http://www.thetfordvermont.
us/recreation.htm,
which is updated weekly. Registration forms are available in the quick
links section as well.
Stop by to meet me, put a face to my name, ask
questions and give me your thoughts and ideas for new recreation
activities you would like to see in Thetford, December 6th at 7 PM at Latham
Library.
**Basketball and Alpine Ski
Registration will be closing early registration after the first week of
December. Please get those forms in (if you haven't already) to avoid a
late fee! Best to drop off the form and payment at the
**As an alternative to alpine
skiing, a cross-country ski program will also be offered on Friday afternoons
until 3 PM. Skiers will meet in the TES school cafeteria by 12:30 on
Fridays. Adult volunteers are needed to ski with the children.
**Cross-country ski equipment
is needed for students to borrow/rent. Contact the recreation department if you
have equipment for the program.
**Adult Open Gym is available
at TES on Sunday Nights from 7-8:30 PM. Contact Andy Boyce for
details.
Submitted by Hilary Linehan, Recreation Director
Town of Thetford 785-2922 ext 6
BAKE SALE & COOKIE WALK
Saturday, December 15th 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM
Silent Auction concludes at 11:30 AM
Submitted by Ransom J. Ackerman Jr., Volunteer
Coordinator,
Wednesday, December 5th 7:00 PM
Yankee Magazine essayist and author
Edie Clark will read from her new book "Saturday Beans and Sunday
Suppers," musings on the pleasures of simple food with recipes from her
collection. She returns to Thetford by popular demand, having been here last
summer to read from her previous book of essays "The View from Mary's
Farm." Copies of her books will be available for sale.
Wednesday, December 19th
Annual Winter Solstice
Celebrations
Come light up the Library with candles and your smiles to celebrate the darkest
day of the year.
Tuesdays 3-8 PM
Wednesdays 2-8:30 PM
Submitted by Margo Nutt
UNITED
The United Church of Thetford
will present, The Living Light, a
dramatic musical experience for Christmas on Saturday, Dec.15 at the North
Thetford Fellowship Hall, US Route 5 in
Please call Ginny Southworth,
333-4635 or Lois Paige 785-2687.
Submitted by Gail Dimick
PLANNING COMMISSION FORUM
The Planning Commission will be hosting an Educational Forum on Flood Hazard
Regulations with presentations by the Vermont Department of Environmental
Conservation's River Management Program and Two-Rivers Ottauquechee Regional
Commission. The Forum will be presented at our regular meeting to be held
at 7:15pm on Tuesday, December 4, at the Town Offices in
All are
welcome.
Submitted by Wayne Parks, Chair, Planning
Commission
TA
NOTES
*On Friday, December 7, the
Norwegian dance troupe Smajondolene
will
perform at 1:00 pm in TA's Anderson Hall. This award-winning youth
folk dance group has performed worldwide, and they will be accompanied by
Hardanger fiddler Hans Erik Rua and directed by choreographer Karin
Brennesvik. We appreciate the cooperation of Revels North and
producer Sherry Merrick in making this exceptional performance available
to our school. Parents and members of the public are welcome to
attend.
*The Human Geography class will present its projects at 7:00 pm in the
TA Library on Wed., December 12. Mark your calendar for this annual
presentation of original research focused on historical and spatial analysis of
local community topics.
*The annual Winter Instrumental Concert will be
held on Tuesday, December 18, at 7:00 pm in Anderson Hall. Please join us
for this wonderful musical evening.
*Basketball season at TA starts this month. The Varsity girls
open at home on Wednesday, December 5, against
*A “For Sale” sign is up in
front of Goddard Hall! A building
full of history and fond memories, Goddard has served
*If you’ve been on campus at
all this fall, you’ve probably noticed the new
practice field taking shape to the west of (and up the hill from) the boys’
soccer field and baseball diamond. This field will provide more space for
physical education classes and team practices. The Academy will lose the use of
the small field just west of Anderson Hall once construction begins in that
area
– the new field will fill that gap and take the pressure off our two main
fields. Work on the new field has stopped for the winter, with just a few
tasks to complete. In the spring, the remaining topsoil will be spread,
followed by final grading and seeding. The Woods Trail has been rerouted and
now climbs up above the new field before dropping to the north end of the boys’
field. We invite you to walk the trail and enjoy the new view east to
*December recess begins on the 24th, and school resumes on January
2. We wish a warm and happy holiday season to everyone.
Submitted by Wendy Cole
LATHAM MEMORIAL LIBRARY
NEWS
"Community Corner", Thursday Dec. 6 at 7
pm
Join us as we welcome Hilary
Linehan, Thetford's new Recreation Director! She's hard at work
organizing Thetford activities for this winter and the rest of '08 & she's
eager to hear your suggestions and questions.
"Native American and European Encounters in the
Professor Colin Calloway,
Chair of Dartmouth's Native American Studies Department, will discuss how the
Phone book reminder
A new Thetford phone book is
in the works! If you (1) are new to town & want to make sure you're
included in the book (2) were in the previous Thetford phone book or are in the
local phone company phone book and don't want to be listed in the Thetford
phone book (3) have edits to your listing from the previous Thetford phone book
or other concerns, please email Lynne O'Hara at LOH@sover.net.
If you don't have access to email, please call her at
333-4846.
Submitted by Elise
Tillinghast
ANNE SLADE FREY CHARITABLE
TRUST
Thetford’s Fall recipients:
SERG,
Founded in 1992 by long-time
* Teach nonviolent,
cooperative approaches to international and interpersonal conflict.
* Respect cultural diversity as well as human and ecological
interdependence.
* Encourage creative thought on social, economic and political questions
* Involve children and adults in theater, music, dance and the visual
arts.
* Reach people who have been neglected by conventional schooling.
* Seek to eliminate poverty and inequality.
* Foster democratic participation.
Submitted by Cynthia Taylor
Administrative Coordinator
The Anne Slade Frey Charitable Trust
THE PORCUPINE, PRACTICALLY
PREDATOR-PROOF
The wild apple tree at the end of Poor Farm Road bore a strange fruit two weeks
ago. A large, fibrous ball had mysteriously lodged in the branches. On
closer inspection this proved to be a porcupine, latched onto a perilously
slender limb. It was oblivious to my approach and kept its eyes shut to
the wintry morning. Supremely confident in its defenses it had chosen to sleep
off its meal of apples in full view of a group waiting for the school bus.
As many a dog owner knows, the porcupine is a remarkably well-protected animal
thanks to its unique coat of about 30,000 quills. Hence the name ‘porc epine’-
french for thorny pig. Quills are actually specialized hairs with hollow,
lightweight shafts and needle-sharp points. The tip of a quill is covered
with scales that gradually curl up into backward-facing barbs once the quill
penetrates the flesh of an attacker. The barbs make quills hard to dislodge and
also cause them to work their way deeper with the attacker’s movements,
sometimes piercing vital organs. People ask if porcupines ever get
stuck by their own quills, and the answer is ‘yes’. A surprising 30 percent of
porcupines fall out of trees, sustaining fractures and quill pricks. For that
reason both the skin and quills of a porcupine contain a natural antibiotic and
quill injuries rarely become infected.
It is untrue that porcupines shoot their quills at attackers. Their quills are
quite firmly attached to the skin and it takes about 3.5 ounces of pull to
detach a single quill (from an anesthetized porcupine.) However when a
porcupine is threatened its skin tightens causing the quills to stand up.
The charge of an attacker then drives the bases of the quills into the
tightened skin with a force sufficient to shear them from their roots.
Although porcupines are well protected, an encounter with a predator still
carries a risk of injury and is best avoided. Thus they have evolved a
series of warning signals to deter would-be attackers. Firstly they raise
their quills, making the body look bigger, and they turn their backs. This
reveals the prominent white of the quills against the contrasting the black
fur, an effect reminiscent of the skunk’s black-and-white warning display. For
good measure, the white markings on the quills have a natural fluorescence that
makes them more visible at night. Porcupines also rattle their quills, chatter
their teeth and make other sounds. To complete the warning, they release a
pungent odor from an area of specialized quills on their lower back known as
the rosette. If the predator presses on, undeterred by this visual,
auditory and olfactory warning the porcupine tries to keep its back to the
attacker and swats it with its stout tail. The short quills on the tail
can actually inflict more harm than the longer, more menacing quills on the
neck and back.
The porcupine is second only to the beaver as largest of rodents in the
Porcupines were never evolved to flee rapidly, they move along at a slow
shuffle. Unafraid by nature they are easy to approach, to the benefit of
many a hungry native and lost hunter who has been saved by a meal of porcupine
meat. From their quills came the native tradition of decorative quill-work on
hides, mats and birch bark baskets, while their fur is used to this day in
quality fishing lures.
Submitted by Li Shen
Thetford Conservation Commission
Thetford Diversity Update (in
2 parts)
November 11, 2007
Part I.
Great things are happening at
Big thanks go to the entire staff of TES for their support of the Bridges
visit. It was time consuming and took many thoughtful meetings of the TES
Diversity Leadership Team to make this happen. Principal Alice Worth was
instrumental in spearheading this effort at the school, as were several
teachers including Joanna Waldman, Abby Logan, and Meredith Moore, all as
members of the diversity leadership team.
Those organizations who so
generously dedicated financial resources to fund this visit to TES and which
allowed the school to purchase many copies of the Bridges book, "Through
My Eyes" (which Ruby signed!) are:
1. The Vermont Community Foundation
2. The Jack and Dorothy Byrne Foundation
3. Friends of Thetford Education
4.
5.
6. The
7. The Thetford PTO
Without this critical funding we could not have paid for Ms. Bridges'
honorarium and travel expenses to allow her to present three separate,
age-appropriate sessions to TES student in grades 1, 2 and 3, then a session to
grades 4, 5, and 6, and finally a separate session to TA 7th and 8th graders
many of whom had helped pave the way to prepare for the Bridges visit last year
when they were 6th grade students at TES.
Also working to help
coordinate the many needed people and resources to help make the Bridges visit
a reality was Thetford Diversity Forum co-chair Annelise Orleck to whom I
extend many gracious thanks.
This was a true community-wide effort that resulted in new learning
opportunities for our children. The collaborative spirit and eagerness to
work as a team in peer-to-peer style came from the educators at TES without
whose help and guidance this visit would not have been successful. Ms. Bridges
commented at the end of the day on Wednesday how incredibly well-prepared the
TES students were for her visit, how engaged they were in the information she
had to impart, how thoughtful were the questions they asked, and how well they
knew
As Ms. Bridges states on her website: "Each and every one of us is born
with a clean heart. Our babies know nothing about hate or racism. But soon they
begin to learn - and only from us. We keep racism alive. We pass it on to our
children. We owe it to our children to help them keep their clean start."
--Ruby Bridges
Below is an excerpt from last week's TES newsletter describing the day in more
detail. I hope you'll make a trip to TES to see the student writing
covering the hallway walls that is impressive and thoughtful.
Thetford Elementary School
News and Views
November 8, 2007
Issue 6
From The Principal's Desk:
Ruby Bridges Visits TES: On Wednesday Ms. Ruby Bridges visited TES and
conducted an amazing interactive session with the children beginning with a two
hour presentation for the 1st-3rd graders at 9:00 and ending with a
presentation to the 4th-6th graders at 12:30. In between Ruby was able to
tour the school and visit with the kindergarten children. Her message of
opening one's heart and mind to others even if they are different from you, set
in the context of her own experiences, really touched the children and spurred
wonderful questions and dialogue throughout the day.
This visit was a rare
gift. Ruby was genuinely impressed by our students and the work they have
done to celebrate diversity as well as recognize the challenges of persevering
in the face of adversity. I hope all TES families can view the students'
writing, which is up on the walls in the "primary wing" and the
corridor outside the art room and library. Your kids are amazing.
During the presentation they were thoughtful, insightful, polite and
patient. I was very proud of them. Their work is a testimony not
only to the quality of their thinking and writing but to our dedicated staff
who has worked at helping the students understand Ruby's message.
Part II.
Also at TES, a group of dedicated parents and students have been meeting for
several weeks to develop the first-ever Thetford FIRST LEGO League (FLL) teams.
These teams constructed Lego robots that they then programmed to perform
various tasks on a 4 ft X 8 ft competition table. FLL is an international
program for children ages 9-14. It combines a hands-on, interactive
robotics program and a research presentation with a sports-like
atmosphere. Teams consist of up to 10 members and focus on such things as
team building, problem solving, creativity, and analytical thinking. http://www.firstlegoleague.org/ for
more information on this exciting program.
What, you might ask, does FLL have to do with diversity? Well, when you
enter a classroom after school and see TES girls and boys being mentored and
coached by men and women who are involved Thetford community members, and
combine it with Dartmouth Thayer School of Engineering women students working
side-by-side with children to help them learn to program robots, it's a
remarkably diverse mix of people and skill sets. The teaching, and even
more importantly, the learning and team-building skills children acquire
through this type of interaction is extraordinary. Finally, seeing the
FLL competition that took place on Saturday, November 3 at the Thayer School of
Engineering at
The many
Huge thanks go to Bryant Patten, Bob Wells, Jean Graber, and Greg Gundlach who
served as parent mentors, coaches, and motivators for the students. All
the children came away with newfound knowledge, a strong sense of team play,
and just how much fun it can be to think, create, design, and test their skills
against others in a nurturing (and exciting) environment. Bryant and Bob,
you guys are truly brilliant geeks (really, positively in every way!), and my
hat is off to you for coming up with this great idea and moving the ball
forward. TES, Thetford, and our students are lucky to have you, as we are so
fortunate to have teachers and a principal who came to the competition on
Saturday morning. Thanks to TES teachers Abby Logan, Jen Pratt, Meredith
Moore, and Principal Alice Worth for offering their support for the kids on an
early weekend morning.
Below is an excerpt from last week's TES Newsletter describing FLL in more
detail. Enjoy...
Congratulations to the two TES First LEGO League teams! This fall two
teams were developed at TES to explore the science of robotics, including
designing, building and programming. This after school program was created and
supported by parent volunteers, and the students have done an amazing job
coming together and working collaboratively to investigate challenges and
produce
solutions. It has been fun and rewarding. On Saturday, team
"Mindbreakers" and team "Munchkins" competed in the
Dartmouth Area Robotics Tournament (DART) and did an amazing job!
(End of TES newsletter)
That's it for the moment on diversity in Thetford. Hope you have a
terrific week.
[Note that if I omitted anyone's name who helped with either of the above
projects it was purely unintentional. All TES teachers have been involved
in one way or another with this long-term diversity effort, and I am extremely
grateful for your help.]
Submitted by Dave
Celone
The deadline for submissions is the 20th of each month. Send news including contact name and telephone number to Cathee Clement at 785-2668 or turtlepond@netzero.net.
Please list Thetford Town
Newsletter in the subject line.