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seniors

July activities at the Council on Aging

bemisWhat to expect when you or your loved one has Alzheimer’s disease
July 13 at 9:30 a.m.
One of the most difficult aspects of Alzheimer’s disease, whether in yourself or a loved one, is not knowing what to expect as the disease progresses. Knowing that certain changes and behaviors are part of having the disease, rather than your fault or the fault of your loved one, can help you cope and reduce stress. All are invited to find out more when Pamela Taylor, LICSW, Community Educator with CareDimensions, comes to Bemis Hall on Monday, July 13 at 9:30 a.m. She will discuss changes in the brain, why some behaviors occur, and how to minimize unwanted behaviors, and give suggestions on improving communication with someone with the disease. All ages welcome.

Stay cooler and prevent heatstroke
July 16 at 10 a.m.
Summer heat can be dangerous, especially for those who are older. Even if you never had trouble with the heat before, age-related changes can make you more susceptible to falling ill from the heat. Come hear the Lincoln Fire Department on Thursday, July 16 at 10 a.m. at Bemis Hall talk about why heat can send you to the hospital, how to keep yourself cooler, symptoms of heat stroke, and what to do if you think you may be getting heat stroke.

The Wheel of Life for gratitude and growth
July 20 at 1 p.m.
The Wheel of Life is a visual representation of the many components of our lives—physical, spiritual, financial, work/volunteering, social, mental, and family. Come find out how you can use the Wheel of Life both to enhance your gratitude and for personal growth when Pamela Mizrahi, LICSW, of the COA, presents a workshop at Bemis Hall on Monday, July 20 at 1 p.m. You’ll learn how to look at each component singly and in relation to one another and live more fully, healthfully, and happily. All ages welcome!

Basic self-defense
July 27 at 1 p.m.
Whether you are at home in Lincoln or traveling, you need to know how to prevent crime or, if you find yourself in a dangerous situation, how to get away unharmed. Find out the best ways to secure your home and your vehicle as well as learn strikes, blocks, kicks, and patterns of movement to get you out of a situation in which you are being attacked when Ian Spencer of the Lincoln Police and Jena Salon come to Bemis Hall on Monday, July 27 at 1 p.m. The methods you learn will use minimal energy with the goal being escape. Those who attended the previous workshops will benefit from the refresher provided by this workshop.

What you want to know about drug addiction but are afraid to ask
July 29 at 1 p.m.
Abuse of prescription medications is replacing alcoholism as the most common form of addiction for residents of affluent communities. And among teenagers, heroin use has become an epidemic in our suburbs. The impact of addiction to these substances can be devastating for both the addicts and their families. Spouses, parents and grandparents are often confused about what to do and are too embarrassed to ask for advice. On July 29tfrom 1 p.m. to 2:30 at Bemis Hall, Dan Boynton, the founder of Bay Cove, Boston’s leading drug treatment facility, will provide a practical overview of today’s addictive drugs and the treatment options that work. His wife, Janet Boynton, will show brief video interviews with young people in recovery. Participants will be encouraged to share their concerns.

Save the date:

Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate

Learn about the U.S. Senate in an interactive and exploratory way on a trip to the new Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate on Friday, September 25. After a short introduction folks can independently wander through the museum with a tablet which allows them to engage fully in the democratic process. An issue of the day also enhances the experience. A full-scale replica of the U.S. Senate Chamber and other exhibits are also on view. The Institute opened this past March to rave reviews. Note that this is a self guided tour with quite a bit of walking, but that there are places to sit throughout the building. The tour lasts between an hour to an hour and a half. The bus will leave the Lincoln Mall at 9:30 a.m. and return about 3 p.m. The cost is $15 per person. Lunch is still to be arranged. Signup begins in September.

 

 

Campus Master Plan Committee is up and running

The Community Center Study Committee's "preferred option." Click on the image for more options and interior design ideas.

The Community Center Study Committee’s “preferred option” for the location of the facility on the Hartwell campus.

The Campus Master Plan Committee (CMPC) has begun meeting and is moving quickly, with plans to interview consultant finalists on July 16.

The committee is charged with examining the implications of a Hartwell campus community center on Ballfield Road campus roadways, traffic, parking, public safety and accessibility, and recreational facilities, and to understand site issues such as wetlands, conservation land, septic fields and geotechnical conditions. One of the CMPC’s first tasks is hiring a firm with the skills needed to do this work. Residents authorized $75,000 for this purpose at Town Meeting in March.

Members of the committee are Renel Fredriksen from the Board of Selectmen, Jennifer Glass  and Tim Christenfeld from the School Committee; Bryce Wolf from the Planning Board; Ken Bassett from the Roadway & Traffic Committee; Dilla Tingley from the Council on Aging board; Patricia Donahue from the Parks and Recreation Committee; either Peter von Mertens or Jim Meadors from the Conservation Commission; and at-large members Carole Kasper, Vin Cannistraro and Paula Cobb. There are four nonvoting members as well: Town Administrator Tim Higgins, Superintendent of Schools Becky McFall, Council on Aging Director Carolyn Bottum, and Parks & Recreation Director Dan Pereira.

Letter to the editor: Help Lincoln boomers build community

letter

To the editor:

On any given day, a visit to Bemis Hall will find it buzzing with activity and bursting at the seams with people socializing, participating in programs, volunteering, seeking counsel and more. And it’s about to get a lot busier, if a newly formed group of self-described “boomers” has anything to do with it.

In classic Lincoln fashion, the inspiration of one has turned into an ad hoc discussion group of how to introduce more baby boomers to current community offerings, especially those offered by the Council on Aging at Bemis Hall, and how to evolve and enhance existing programs to meet new and growing needs without compromising the valued programs and critical services currently in place. While some boomers have been enjoying COA programming, many are not. And the newly formed group is out to find out why…and to come up with strategies to help more boomers to find their way to Bemis.

At the first gathering of this new group, much discussion focused on “branding” and how that influences perception. Questions were raised as to how to better reach out to communicate the range of community activities that currently exist at Bemis and throughout town. Several saw their interests and needs as variations of the current COA and Parks & Recreation programming. This group of boomers, looking into the future, saw the benefit of a true multigenerational community center that could accommodate the needs of all and reinforce a sense of coming together as a community.

The work of this new group—yet unnamed—will benefit from previous work done by the COA in 2013, where many similar questions were explored, and by the more recent work of the Community Center Study Committee. The energy, enthusiasm, and creative thinking of this group may well take things to the next level and test the limitations of Bemis Hall beyond the challenge posed by existing programs and services. This is not a bad thing—this is a reflection of the natural evolution of a vibrant community growing and changing over time. In fact, this is a cause for celebration—ingenuity and grass-roots initiative is alive and well in Lincoln.

The next gathering of the unnamed boomers ad hoc discussion group is on Tuesday, June 16 at 8:15 a.m. in Bemis Hall. They are spreading the word to encourage others to join them to think of creative ways to introduce community activities for all.

Sincerely,

Sara Mattes
71 Conant Rd.

Letters to the editor must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to news@lincolnsquirrel.com. Letters must be about a Lincoln-specific topic, will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Letters containing personal attacks, errors of fact or other inappropriate material will not be published.

Council on Aging events in June

bemisAn exploration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition
June 5 at 2:30 p.m.
The 19th-century Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky is an ambitious musical work in 10 movements, each inspired by a particular artwork at an exhibition he visited. Come hear a live performance and learn about how and why it was composed as well as about the artworks that each movement interprets when Abla Shocair plays and discusses this work on Friday, June 5 at 2:30 p.m. at Bemis Hall. She will also play Papillons by Robert Schumann, which is believed to have had an influence on the Pictures suite and Franz Liszt’s Rhapsody #6 as it relates to Mussorgsky’s piano training. Abla, a civil engineer originally from Jordan, started playing piano at age 4.

[Read more…] about Council on Aging events in June

News acorns – 6/4/15

Sam Bayer

Sam Bayer

Sam Bayer featured at Monday’s open mic night

Sam Bayer will be the featured performer at this month’s LOMA (Lincoln Open-Mic Acoustic) on Monday, June 8 from 7-10 p.m. in the Lincoln Public Library’s Tarbell Room. He’ll perform a half-hour set starting around 8:30 p.m. Bayer has performed at First Night, Passim’s, Sally O’Briens, the Nameless Coffeehouse and other venues and has four CDs to his credit.

[Read more…] about News acorns – 6/4/15

Lincoln veterans invited to join new group

military-logosLincoln military veterans are invited to come together to form a new veterans’ group to have occasional meetings and perhaps a service project to advance a worthy veterans’ cause.

The group is open to all who have served in any of America’s five formal armed services (Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and Marines), including Reserves and National Guard.

Organizers need veterans to respond to news articles such as this one because they can’t easily be contacted as a group directly. Although residents’ veteran status is part of the information collected in the U.S. census, the Town Clerk is not permitted to release a list of those names.

“We don’t even know who they are in Lincoln—that’s why we’re putting out this word,” said retired Navy Capt. Tom Risser of Lincoln, a former flight surgeon who served in Iraq and one of the effort’s organizers.

Risser said he hoped to find more riflemen for the town’s annual Memorial Day celebration as well as a contingent of veterans to march in the parade that day and in Independence Day.

“That parade is getting smaller and smaller,” said Priscilla Leach, the town’s Veterans’ Service Officer, who helps connect veterans with services and apply for federal, state and local benefits (including property tax abatements).

Participation in the group will be entirely optional, and organizers guarantee there will be no solicitation for donations or activities that each vet doesn’t choose to make time for. Anyone who’s interested should contact one of the people in Lincoln below.

Tom Risser
thomas_risser@hms.harvard.edu
781-789-6253

Adam Hogue
Commanding Officer, 1166th Transportation Company, Massachusetts Army National Guard
adam.m.hogue@gmail.com
978-828-6184

Priscilla Leach
Lincoln Veterans’ Services Officer
lincolnvetservices@gmail.com
781-259-4472

Candidates sought for Campus Master Plan Committee

The Lincoln School campus.

The Lincoln School campus.

In response to community interest in locating a community center on the Lincoln School’s Ballfield Road campus, the Board of Selectmen and the School Committee are jointly creating the Campus Master Plan Committee (CMPC). The purpose of the CMPC will be to consider infrastructure and safety issues related to the possible co-location of Council on Aging, the Parks and Recreation Department, and school functions on Ballfield Road. The CMPC’s charge will be to examine the implications on roadways, traffic, parking, public safety and accessibility, and recreational facilities, and to understand site issues such as wetlands, conservation land, septic fields and geotechnical conditions.

The CMPC will be responsible for hiring, subject to approval by the Selectmen and the School Committee, a firm with the skills needed to do the work. At the 2015 Town Meeting, Article 33 authorized $75,000 for this purpose. The CMPC will determine its own meeting schedule, but it is expected that it will meet frequently between June and December, with the delivery of a final report by the end of the calendar year. The committee will gather input from the public and relevant boards, and an interim report and public feedback will be one of the items for discussion at the fall State of the Town meeting.

Interested candidates should have experience and skills that will further the work of the committee. The at-large members will join representatives from relevant town boards. Letters of interest should be submitted to both the Board of Selectmen at selectmen@lincolntown.org and the School Committee at schoolcomm@lincnet.org by Friday, May 15. The Selectmen and School Committee will hold a joint meeting to finalize the CMPC’s charge and to appoint the at-large members on Monday, May 18 at 7:30 p.m in the Donaldson Room in the Town Office Building.

May activities with the Council on Aging

bemisArabic conversation
May 4 and May 18 at 9:45 a.m.
Azza Omer from Sudan has generously offered to teach a free informal, light and easy conversational Arabic language class on Monday, April 6 at 9:45 a.m. at Bemis Hall. Learning something completely new is great for brain fitness and for having fun! You’ll learn some common words and phrases. Come give the class a try!

Lincoln Academy with Alison Taunton-Rigby: Biotechnology in Massachusetts
May 4 at 12:30 p.m.
Come to Bemis Hall on Monday, May 4 at 12:30 to hear Alison Taunton-Rigby discuss “Biotechnology in Massachusetts.” Bring a bag lunch. The Council on Aging provides beverages and dessert. The lectures last about an hour, including a question and answer period. Participants are welcome to stay after the program to continue their discussion. [Read more…] about May activities with the Council on Aging

News acorns – 4/30/15

acornPMC Kids Ride needs riders and volunteers; prizes announced

Lincoln’s first annual PMC Kids Ride to fight cancer is Sunday, May 3 (see this Lincoln Squirrel article for more information). If you can’t ride but wish to donate, Something Special is selling limited-edition PMC bracelets for $10 created by sixth-grader Will Levy, founder of the Lincoln event. All riders get a PMC Kids Ride T-shirt, water bottle and glow-in-the-dark wristband (volunteers get a T-shirt as well). The minimum fundraising commitment is $25 per rider, though most kids raise a lot more than that. Riders who raise $250+ also receive a PMC string bag and those who raise $750+ receive a special New Balance PMC backpack. In addition, Something Special will donate a $50 gift certificate to the child who raises the most money. To register to ride or volunteer, visit the Lincoln PMC Kids Ride page. Questions” Send email to pattylevy.pmckidslincoln@gmail.com.

Chinese animated short films to be shown

The Lincoln Library Film Society (LLFS) will show a medley of short Chinese animated films at the library on Tuesday, May 5 starting at 7 p.m. The animation industry in China was slow to recover from the stagnation of Mao’s cultural revolution, and it wasn’t until the early 1980s that animated films would start to be produced regularly. The best animated shorts to come out of Chinese studios show little influence from their larger and more lucrative counterparts in Japan and the U.S. A luminous example from 1981,The Monkey Who Wanted to Catch the Moon, uses nocturnal lighting and deep layering to make its 2-D moving figures appear as though they are lit from within. For more information on this and other LLFS events, email lincolnlibraryfilmsociety@gmail.com.

Walk in a maypole labyrinth on May 8

Celebrate Spring in one of Lincoln’s many secret wonders—a local labyrinth with our very own maypole. Walk the labyrinth with Jai Kaur Annamaria in a special Council on Aging event that’s open to all by donation on Friday, May 8 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. (rain date: May 9). Location given upon registration; sign up by calling the COA at 781-259-8811. You’ll experience the ancient meditative practice of walking a labyrinth, indulge your senses in flowers, create your own may basket, and enjoy spring foods.

Panel on sexual assault at colleges

The Sudbury-Wayland-Lincoln Domestic Violence Roundtable presents a panel discussion on “The Culture of Sexual Assault on College Campuses: Challenges and New Responses” on Tuesday, May 12 at 3 p.m. in the Community Meeting Room of the Wayland Public Safety building (38 Cochituate Road). The panel, moderated by Jessica Teperow, Director of Prevention Programs at REACH Beyond Domestic Violence, will feature Karen L. Raye, assistant professor at Lasell College who teaches classes on domestic violence and in the college’s Criminal Justice Department; Jacqueline Anchondo Silva, director of Title IX Compliance at Mt. Ida College; and Steph Trilling, manager of community Awareness and prevention services at the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center. Panelists will discuss their roles and what they want parents and/or students to know in regard to their own safety or safety of others when getting ready for college. There will be a Q&A session at the end.

News acorns – 4/14/15

acornTonight: talk on Revolutionary battlefield

“Discovering Parker’s Revenge Battlefield: April 19, 1775″ is the topic of a talk on Tuesday, April 14 at 7:30 p.m. in Bemis Hall. The speaker will be Dr. Meg Watters of PBS’s “Time Team America” and principal investigator for the ongoing Parker’s Revenge Project at Minute Man National Historical Park. She’ll discuss efforts to better understand the Battle Road engagement between the retreating British regulars and the militia and Minute Men of Lexington, Lincoln and surrounding towns on April 19, 1775. The site is on the border of Lincoln and Lexington within the national park.

Dr. Watters received her B.A. in classics from Trinity College, an M.A. in GIS and remote sensing in archaeology from Boston University, and a Ph.D. in new methods for archaeo-geophysical data visualization at the University of Birmingham, where she helped build the IBM Visual and Spatial Technology Centre, where she provided geophysical survey expertise.

The talk is one of several observances of the start of the Revolutionary War. For more information, click on one of the event titles on the Lincoln Minute Men website and battleroad.org.

HATS to meet with MBTA official

On Thursday, April 23, the Hanscom Area Towns Committee (HATS) will host Paul Regan, Executive Director of the MBTA Advisory Board. The meeting will be held at 7:30 p.m. at the Town Office Building.

Regan plans to discuss a broad range of topics related to the current state and future of the MBTA, including general matters raised by the recent winter’s challenges and the recently-issued report of the Governor’s special commission, as well as specific matters of concern to the four HATS communities. Also on the agenda for April 23 are updates on the Route 2 project and a status report from the MassPort/Hanscom Field Community Advisory Committee.

The public is welcome to attend all HATS meetings, which may also be viewed live on Lincoln public access media via lincolntv.pegstream.com, Verizon channel 33, or Comcast channel 8, or beginning several days after the meeting at lincolntv.pegcentral.com or on the local cable channels.

HATS is an alliance among the Selectmen and other officials of the towns of Lincoln, Concord, Lexington and Bedford that focuses on Hanscom Air Force Base, Hanscom Air Field, transportation and other regional matters. HATS recently had discussions with MassPort CEO Tom Glynn regarding MassPort’s strategic plans, various business and government experts helping manage Rt. 128 and related traffic concerns, the Air Force Base’s local commander, and senior representatives of the Governor’s Military Assets Task Force. For more information about HATS and access to agendas, minutes and videos, please visit www.hanscomareatownscommittee.com.

Film on wilderness preservation

Also on Thursday, April 23, join the Walden Woods Project for a special screening of a new film by Fulcrum Publishing, “Wilderness in America: From Conquest to Conservation.”  The 55-minute film chronicles the evolution of wilderness preservation in America over four centuries that ultimately led to the protection of 110 million acres.

The film will be shown at the Walden Woods Project’s Thoreau Institute at 44 Baker Farm Rd. in Lincoln. Free admission. To reserve seats, call (781) 259-4707 or email wwproject@walden.org. A wine and cheese reception, sponsored by the Cheese Shop in Concord will be held at 7 p.m. followed at 7:30 p.m. with remarks by  Robert C. Baron, Fulcrum’s founder and president, and the film screening.

The Walden Woods Project is a nonprofit organization that preserves the land, literature and legacy of Henry David Thoreau to foster an ethic of environmental stewardship and social responsibility. Click here for other outdoor springtime activities coming up in Lincoln.

COA trip to Mt. Auburn Cemetery

See some of the fascinating and beautiful places and monuments in this amazing historical and nature site on Friday, May 22 with the Council on Aging. After the tour of the cemetery, the group will go to Belmont Center for lunch at Asai. Each person will pay for their own lunch and cash is recommended. The trip is limited to 30 people. The Doherty’s bus will be at Lincoln Mall at 9 a.m. and arrive back in Lincoln around 2 p.m. For more information, contact Donna Rizzo at donna@ecacbed.com or Claire Mount at mounts781@gmail.com.