Groton Town Newsletter
Spring 2005 Issue
|
|
|
What’s In this Issue? ·
Richard Kreis
Appointed to Groton Select Board
·
Groton Food Shelf
·
Cub Scout Pack 702 Goes Mohawk
·
Groton Revitalization Project
·
GrotonVT.com is
Up and Running!
·
Green Up A Success!
·
Getting to Know Our Neighbor
·
Groton
Community Building
· History of the Chicken Pie Supper· Do You Know Who These Kids are?· Local Recipes |
· Richard Kreis Appointed to Groton Select Board (7/05) Richard
Kreis was appointed July 5th to the Select Board to fill out Berne Bouley's
term of office which will be up for reelection this March at Town
Meeting. Berne served the community
well and we thank him for his time and dedication. Richard Kreis served
4 years on the Groton Select Board before Leonard Doscinski was elected and
it was felt that his previous experience would be a great asset to the
board. Richard is an industrial
engineer by trade and served as plant manager for a large glass company for
many years. We thank the other people who expressed interest in the post and encourage them to run for the position in March. · Groton Food Shelf(7/05) When
Jeannie Partington, the former town clerk, left Groton there was no longer a
food shelf in Groton. Roberta Dana
and Linda Nunn, seeing the need, took up the responsibility and brought the
Groton Food Shelf back to life. Money
from the defunct former food shelf had been given to the Methodist Church for
safe keeping and that was used as seed money to get our current food shelf up
and running. The town voted at the
2005 town meeting to bring the food shelf under the Groton municipal
wing. Thanks go to Linda Nunn and
Roberta Dana for personally filling the void when we needed them. Linda and Roberta
are continuing to run the food shelf for Groton. They recently met with the library and requested use of some of
the library shelf space. The library
was able to squeeze room for more shelving in one of their storage areas. This year (2005)
we have provided food (and sometimes necessities such as toilet paper,
toothpaste, soap, etc.) to 40 adults and 59 children. The Groton Food Shelf serves Groton, Wells
River and Ryegate. We have received
food donations from many local residents and also organizations such as: The Cub scouts Ryegate Presbyterian Women Peacham Tops Wells River Bank Merchants Bank We have received
monetary donations from: Ryegate Presbyterian Women Andy & Jill Smith of Ryegate Groton United Methodist Women Merchants Bank Please contact
Linda Nunn or Roberta Dana at 584-3276 to receive services or to donate. To see a list of
items needed at the Food Shelf, click
here. · Cub Scout Pack 702 Goes Mohawk (7/05) 11 Cub Scouts from Pack 702 spent the week of July 10th at the Green Mountain Council, BSA Camp Sunrise in Benson VT. Camp Sunrise offers an opportunity for Cub Scouting to continue throughout the summer months. Young boys from all over the state come together for a week of fun and outdoor adventure. The Camp Theme for this year was Medieval Knights bringing to life the age of honor and chivalry. The highlight of the week was a huge battle including water balloon tossing catapults made by each camp. The Leadership of Pack 702 looks forward to offering this opportunity to our boys every summer. We thank the community for their support in housing our meetings, and contributing to our fundraising programs.
Eli gets a double bull’s eye in the archery contest. . · Groton Revitalization Project Very Visible
I always have to laugh when people complain that “they don’t build them like they used to.” My experience with old houses in this area is that they built them with whatever materials were at hand and few of the studs run from floor to ceiling without being spliced in between. Lots of loving care and eccentricity went into early construction but they lasted amazingly well. But nothing lasts forever and these buildings surely needed more than a face lift. Like any project in an old house it is always 10 steps backward before you can start to move forward. In the Groton Revitalization material of this web site, there is a project overview, pictorial reports, and background press articles. We will publish status reports and pictures on the web site as much as possible. Obviously the changes are very noticeable at this point in the project. Click here to go to the Project Overview which is very interesting reading. · GrotonVT.com is Up and Running!The
GrotonVT web site is up and running after several months of work by a
small committee consisting of Debra Tinkham, Deborah Jurist, Robin Edwards
and Dave Spencer. After getting some
good advice and a gentle shove in the right direction from Jim Dresser, the
web master of the Groton historical society, Debra Tinkham initiated the
effort to create a Groton web site to establish better communication between
the town offices and the citizens.
Dave had established a Lake Groton Association web site, GrotonPond.com. Robin
has considerable experience in graphic design and photography. And Deborah has worked with web sites and
the public at her nationally successful business, Mountaine Meadows Pottery.
The committee evolved the web site design over a series of weekly
working sessions utilizing spare capacity at the GrotonPond.com site as
a place to prototype ideas. Sincere thanks go out to all the people that
worked to get us the information contained on this web site. Why does
a town like Groton need a website? This isn’t a suburb of some big urban
metropolis where no one knows their neighbor. True but we are a busy
community with lots going on and no really great way of getting to know our
newest neighbors and keep in touch with town events. The
last twenty years has brought us many new fangled gadgets. Cell phones if you
can get reception, exercise machines to stay fit without leaving our living
rooms and caller ID to tell us when NOT to answer our phone. Often these new
tools are used to push us further away from each other. However, if the Internet can connect us
with people in China, and Iraq, California and Idaho why not our own town. This
is the goal of the Groton Website, to inform us and educate us about our own
town and our own people. We have high hopes of sharing recipes, photos, and
stories. We will advertise events and volunteer possibilities. From the
ridiculous to the sublime we hope that www.GrotonVT.com will become a meeting
place for people who might have been introduced to each other at the post
office years ago. Just building the website has been a great opportunity to
bring people together. Hopefully,
next Oct. at Fall Foliage Day, or next March at Town Meeting, neighbors will
see each other face to face and say, “Oh, you’re ‘So and So!’ It’s great to
finally meet you. I saw you were doing ‘such and such’ on the website!” The
beauty of GrotonVT.com is that it is an evolving effort that can change
easily as our community needs change. The web committee welcomes new members
and would especially appreciate news and articles written for the web site. If
you are interested in working on the web site or have suggestions or
comments, please click here
to send an email or contact Debra Tinkham at 584-3995. · Green Up A Success!If you think our town is greener and cleaner, you are right! Approximately 40 hardy volunteers (including Boy Scout Troop 702 and Cub Scout Pack 702) collected 70 bags of litter and a pile of assorted metal items. Many thanks to one and all, and we’ll see you next year. Congratulations go to Groton's Andy Page who designed the
eye- catching Green Up poster that was displayed statewide.! Thanks to Andy for sharing his talent. · Getting to Know Our Neighbors, A visit with Kevin RickerThe following is the introduction to an article by Groton resident, Robin L. H. Edwards. The full text may be accessed by clicking here.
Years later I had an opportunity to attend and record
the minutes for the selectmans meetings and I watched Kevin in action as
chairman to the selectboard, I was impressed that he acted fairly and gently
in every situation that I saw. When the suggestion was made for a write up
about Kevin’s years of service to the town, I wanted to do it and while I was
at it get to know my neighbor better and share what I learned with our other
neighbors.” · Groton Community BuildingBy Debra Tinkham Groton’s
Community Building, so much a part of our town’s active life today, came into
being because a group of dedicated Groton citizens in the 1940’s saw the
town’s need and together put hammer to nail to make it happen. Read a little bit about the building we have come to depend on to host
our elections and chicken pie suppers and how it is fondly remembered by some
of those who helped to build it, broke bread in it’s kitchen as school
children, and learned what it means to be a community within its walls. To access the text, including pictures, click here. · The History of the Groton Chicken Pie SupperBy Diane Kries The Fall Foliage
Festival began in Danville in 1955 in an effort to capture some of the
tourist dollars flowing through the area. The efforts were so successful
there that the activities were expanded to include other towns and villages
in the area. The Groton Fall Foliage Festival came about in 1956 when Groton
followed Danville’s lead and began to captures some of the tourist dollars
for themselves by joining the Northeast Kingdom’s Fall Festival. Organizers
of the Festival tried to find a different theme for each town and Groton was
given the theme of Lumberjacks and thus the Lumberjack Breakfast was born.
This has been held at the Groton Methodist Church ever since. The parade and
local events have grown since that first year with numerous vendors selling
their wares and a variety of musical talents gracing the bandstand across
from the former Groton General Store. The BMU Band provides the music for the
parade and others provide entertainment throughout the day at the Bandstand.
The Evening Hymn Sing has been held at 8:00 p.m. for as long as anyone can
remember and this year will be held at the Baptist Church. The first Saturday
in October has always been our day and come rain. Snow, or shine, leaves on
the trees or off –we go for it. The annual
Chicken Pie Supper is the cornerstone of the Groton Fall Festival. It began in
1954 when the local men’s club decided to raise money to help fund the hot
lunch program at the school. Many questioned the success of an all man run
dinner. Those naysayers were proven wrong, but the men were not too prideful
to accept the help of womenfolk the following year. As the years went by the
profits from the Chicken Pie Supper were used to fund numerous improvements
at the Groton School. Funds are now used to fund annual swimming lessons at
Boulder Beach on Lake Groton, library programs at the Groton Public Library,
and to provide college scholarships to Groton’s graduating seniors. This event is
truly a town event. Rarely is any family able to escape the determined
efforts of the coordinators of the supper. If you are not making apple or
pumpkin pies, then you are likely making chicken pie or waiting on tables, or
dishing up side dishes, or even doing the dishes downstairs. Once you have
committed to volunteering in some way for this event the only way to escape
is to leave town and that is not always a guarantee, especially if a relative
is a coordinator! That evening you will partake of 832 pounds of chicken, 300 pounds of potato, 400 pounds of a carefully guarded secret squash recipe, and 52 gallons of gravy. This Chicken Pie Supper is so great that it has been written up in Family Circle Magazine and in Yankee Magazine. So enjoy, tell your friends about us, and thank you all for your support of our community. · Do You Know Who These Kids are?
Contributed by Shirley Beamis.
This picture was taken in front of the war memorial before the
Community Building was built, so it is a Groton school class. If you know who any of these children
are please let Shirley know at: sbeamis@Yahoo.com,
she has been curious way too long.
(If they are identified, we will let you know in a future article.) · Local Recipes Wild Honey by Mildred Hart Every year as I was
growing up the whole family would collect the flowers to make this
recipe. The clover we would get from
the cow pastures and the rose petals from the old briar roses bordering the
cemetery in Westville. This was what
I grew up thinking honey was. 1 cup rose petals 24 white clover blossoms 24 pink clover blossoms ˝ teas. Alum 10 cups sugar 3 cups water Put sugar and water in a large kettle and heat until clear. Add clover, rose petals and alum. Boil for 3 minutes. Strain through cloth and ladle into jars. Seal while hot. |
Cub
Scouts from Pack 702 stayed in the Mohawk cabin and got their hair cut in
mohawks to get in the spirit.
The
Groton Reconstruction has begun with considerable de-construction.
“I
had a face and a name for Kevin Ricker for years, but I didn’t have an
occasion to meet him until I had agreed to support a friend at a selectboard
meeting. To my dismay and embarrassment my friend presented his case with
threats and accusations. I asked if I could speak and Kevin answered “Yes,
please do.” Though he had no idea what I was going to say or in what tone he
seemed sincere and genuine in those three words. Thankfully, the tone got
better and we sought a resolution to the problem together.