The meeting will be at 6pm at the Clear.  Please join us.

We have LOTS of planning to do

Will we hold our annual seasonal programs (night before the night before Christmas at the Library, Ginger bread house decorating)?  Have we completed our Pittsfield Irene debris removal efforts?  What will our new space look like?  Who will pick up the library mail?  Even though the space is closed for renovations, we still have lots goping on.

Join us for our monthly volunteer and trustee meeting Tuesday November 22nd at 7pm at the Clear River Tavern.

We're holding our October meeting one week early so we have time to prepare for the book sale at the rescheduled Pittsfield Bazaar.  The meeting will be at the Clear at 7pm on September 29th.

SATURDAY 7:30 AM at the CHURCH
FEMA Information and Representatives
and
USDA Emergency Watershed Protection Program (EWP) 
A USDA Representative will explain this program, which offers help for eroded areas that will be vulnerable to future flooding that could cause personal property damage.

It can be easy to complain that taxes are too high, that nobody does anything right, and that everything costs way too much for way too little.  So here's the other side of the story.

As you probably know after quite a few years of discussion, some cordial and some heated, Pittsfield has finally decided it's time we meet ADA, clean up the mildew, and fix the roof of our old school house.   The old school house is now the home of our all volunteer Roger Clark Memorial Library; soon it will hold fresh town offices on the first floor, and the library on the second.

We looked at rates for storage and quickly decided that money should be spent on books and programs for our community, not storage space.  Would you believe we've managed to pack up the whole library, and we're not paying one cent for storage?  Step one, we invited patrons to hoard books, and hundreds of books have found temporary homes around our community.  Step two, volunteers took a hard look at our collection.  Books that haven't been looked at in years were put aside for our annual book sale.  So were books that were factually out of date.  Step three, volunteers put all the remaining books in boxes that went to dry safe storage in your neighbors' homes.  Last our volunteers, with a few paid hands, loaded all our shelving, chairs and tables onto the hay wagon so it could be driven over to the barn to wait.

That's right.  Other than exactly the cost of a few cardboard boxes and $150 cash, your volunteers packed up and stored your library.  And we weren't alone.  Did you know your volunteer firefighters don't just put out fires?  They spent hours last week packing up the old school house.  Pretty cool.

So, we care that much about providing our town with a great space, great books and great programs.  We know you do too, and enjoy a great party, so please reserve your spot for our pig ... I mean big ... annual fund raising party at the Clear.



~Marion

Today library volunteer Angelique Lee and I joined Susie martin at the Vermont Library Association's annual conference.  Susie was chosen as this year's award recipient for her 40 years of service to our own Roger Clark Memorial Library.


Here is her letter of nomination:

I am writing to nominate Susie Martin of Pittsfield’s Roger Clark Memorial Library for the 2011 Trustee of the Year Award.

In 1973 Vermont’s Lieutenant Governor came to Pittsfield to dedicate the Roger Clark Memorial Library. “Above all you have created here and we dedicate here this building to the hopes and ambitions of thousands of people as yet unborn, who will find here a sense of pride and togetherness, a source for practical knowledge or poetic inspiration, as their choice may be, and a place to complement the inspiration given them to grow in body, heart and mind among these beautiful hills as Vermonters have for 200 years.”

In 1973 Susie Martin was one of the 5 members of that library board.  This year, almost 40 years later, she has bravely decided to pass the library on to a new group of volunteers.  During that time Susie has done everything to make our cherished all volunteer library run; from making certain important library organizational standards were upheld and guiding new volunteers, to helping young patrons write their own names on their cards.  I expect we have only an inkling of the work she has done.   We would love to see  Susie rewarded for her time and dedication to the library, without her guidance and and extraordinary  commitment the Library would not be here today.

Sincerely,
Marion AbramsTrustee Chair
Roger Clark Memorial Library