Parents Night Out
BANGOR — The Bangor YMCA is offering a Parents Night Out 4-10 p.m. Saturday, March 21, at the Y, 17 Second St. Y staff will provide care for children in kindergarten through eighth-grade. While Mom and Dad are out on a date, children will go swimming, play on the Dead River pool inflatable and enjoy snacks.
The cost is $20 per child to Y members, $25 others. To make a reservation or for information, call the Y at 941-2808 or email kparker@bangorY.org.
Family Sunday Funday
BANGOR — The Bangor YMCA will host a free monthly Family Sunday Funday member appreciation pool party featuring its Dead River pool Inflatable 12:30-3:30 p.m.Sunday, March 29, at the Y, 17 Second St.
Y members may stop at the Welcome Center during the event to receive a free admission bracelet.
Nonmembers are invited to join the fun with an admission fee of $10 per person or $15 per family.
For information, call 941-2808 or email mcook@bangorY.org.
Drop-in center
BANGOR — SAGE Maine will host an informal drop-in center noon-4 p.m. Fridays at the Health Equity Center, 106 Pine St. SAGE Maine members and friends are invited to stop by to play board or card games, watch a video, chat and enjoy light refreshments. Nancy, an intern from the Center on Aging, and Doug, SAGE Maine executive director, will take turns hosting the center.
Bring ideas for activities, discussions and other programs for SAGE Maine to organize in the Bangor area.
The center is located just north of State Street, one block east of Broadway. Parking is in front of the building or on the street.
SAGE Maine, an affiliate of Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders, is a statewide organization. For information, email info@sagemaine.org or visit sagemaine.org.
Accreditation
BANGOR — Bangor Land Trust announced recently at its annual meeting on Feb. 26 that it has received accreditation from the national Land Trust Alliance. Bangor Land Trust president, Lucy Quimby, said, “Bangor Land Trust is honored to receive accreditation. It demonstrates our commitment to permanent land conservation that benefits the entire community. Our land trust is a stronger organization today having gone through the rigorous accreditation program. We take great pride in maintaining the highest standards of land, fiscal and organizational management. This recognizes that hard work.”
The Land Trust Accreditation Commission is a subsidiary of the Land Trust Alliance. It designs and administers a voluntary program that allows land trusts to demonstrate that they follow 12 standards, comprising 88 practices, that define an ethical, legal and effective organization. This is the land trust community’s way of regulating itself, to ensure that we merit the trust put in us by all the communities in which land trusts hold land, Quimby said.
The Land Trust Alliance developed the first Standards and Practices in 1989, and published a revised set with an accompanying two-volume handbook in 2004.
Earning accreditation is the fulfillment of a resolve that the Bangor Land Trust board made in 2004 and the result of three years of work assembling the documentation to demonstrate the organization’s adherence to the Land Trust Standards and Practices.
For information, email info@bangorlandtrust.org or go to bangorlandtrust.org.
Talk on injustice
BANGOR — Visiting Scholar Joe Soss of the University of Minnesota will give a talk on “Plutocracy, Poverty and Racial Injustice Today: Why We Need a Basic Income” 5-7 p.m. Tuesday, March 17, at the Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine, 96 Harlow St.
Commentary will be provided by University of Maine professor Steve Barkan and Smith College doctoral candidate Judith Josiah Martin.
YMCA board members
BANGOR — Rich Armstrong, president of the Bangor YMCA, announced recently that Paul Means, president and owner of Means Wealth Management; Tristine Currie, branch manager, Machias Savings Bank in Bangor; Ben Sprague, Bangor City Council member and investor at Means Wealth Management; Kate Grover, vice president, Greater Bangor Region Chamber of Commerce; and Susan Faloon, communications supervisor, Emera Maine, were appointed recently to the Bangor YMCA board of directors. They join board members Brian Donahue, Anne-Marie Storey, Elaine Chambers, Drew Cota, Josh Brewer, Durell Buzzini, James Gerety, Joe Connors and Ginny MacMillan on the board.
Genealogical research
CASTINE — The second talk in a series of March genealogical research programs will be held at 2 p.m. Thursday, March 12, in the Wilson Museum’s Hutchins Education Center on Perkins Street. Guest speaker Marlene Groves will discuss “Tips on Interpreting Town Clerks’ Handwriting.”
To assist researchers and transcribers of early vital records the talk will illustrate, examples of handwriting used by several different early Maine town clerks, covering the period from the mid-17th century to the latter part of the 20th century, the period of time most commonly researched by genealogists in Maine.
Marlene Groves has been a member of the Maine Genealogical Society since 1976 and a member of its board of directors since 1988. A certified genealogist from 1997 to 2007, she has published three books covering her own ancestral lines of Clark, Malbon and Hinckley and has transcribed many books of early Maine town vital records which have all been published by Picton Press.
Also, join fellow researchers 10 a.m.-2 p.m. March 12 and every Thursday in March at Wilson Museum’s Hutchins Education Center to peruse some of the resources available from the museum’s collections.
The sessions and talks are free and open to the public. For information, call the museum at 326-9247 or email info@wilsonmuseum.org.
Candidates night
HUDSON — Hudson Grange 457 will host Candidates Night at 7 p.m. Monday, March 16, at the Hudson Town Hall. Candidates running for two open positions on the Board of Selectmen and one open position for the RSU 64 school board have been invited to talk about their reasons for running for office. Refreshments will be served.
Free tax assistance
ORLAND — Tax appointments with free e-filing are available Thursdays in March through April 9 at the H.O.M.E. Learning Center, 90 Schoolhouse Road, off U.S. Route 1. For a tax appointment, call 469-7961.
The free service, sponsored by the AARP Foundation in conjunction with the Eastern Maine CA$H Coalition and the IRS, is available for low to moderate income taxpayers of any age. The volunteer tax preparers are IRS certified. The program can file federal and Maine state tax return, including the Property Tax Fairness Credit and Affordable Care Act adjustments.
Bike Swap
ORONO — The Bicycle Coalition of Maine invites the public to the 2015 Orono Great Maine Bike Swap 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Sunday, April 12, at the UMaine New Balance Recreation Center, University of Maine. Choose from hundreds of bikes, including hybrids, road bikes, mountain bikes, children’s bikes, recumbents and more.
For information about the swap or selling a bike to register a bike, or to sign up to volunteer, visit bikemaine.org/swap.
Admission to the swap is $3 adults and teens, free to UMaine students and children 12 and under.
Free lunch, bake sale
WINTERPORT — A community warming fellowship day, free potluck lunch and bake sale will be held 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, March 14, at Ellingwoods Corner United Methodist Church,
796 Lebanon Road. The thrift shop also will be open. It offers many new items, including decorations for the home hand-painted by a local artist.
Attendees will be encouraged to play board games, do puzzles and visit with friends and acquaintances.
For information, call Debbie Calderwood at 269-2092.