The Lincoln Squirrel – News, features and photos from Lincoln, Mass.

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New Parks & Rec Director among recent town additions

Jessica Downing

Lincoln has a new Director of Parks and Recreation — Jessica Downing, who held the same position in Andover. She succeeds Dan Pereira, who became Assistant Town Administrator in last summer.

Downing was in her Andover role for two years after being promoted from recreation coordinator from 2014–2018 and program assistant before that. She holds a master’s degree in recreation and sports management from Lasell University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of New Hampshire.

Downing was officially appointed last month by the Board of Selectmen, which also named Jennifer Curtin as the new Assistant Director of Land Use and Planning. She succeeds Paula Vaughn-MacKenzie, who held that position until she was named director in December.

Another new face in town is Conservation Director Michele Grzenda, who started on February 1 (see story).

LSB Players presents “What Happens at the End”

LSB Players, the theater production company of Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, presents its virtual winter production, “What Happens at the End.” This original song cycle, devised by cast members through improvisation and writing activities, features music and lyrics by L-S alumni Kenter Davies ’15 and Caleb Martin-Rosenthal ’17, who also directed the cast of 26 students with LSB Players Director Carly Evans.  It is recommended for ages 12+ and will run for about 75 minutes.

Performances will be available to live-stream on Friday, March 5 and Saturday, March 6 at 8 p.m., and Sunday, March 7 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $15 for individuals and $40 for families (plus service fee)/ Please use this link to purchase and obtain your unique access code for one of the performances. Also on March 6 from 10 a.m. – 9 p.m., Sudbury Pizza Place will donate a portion of its sales to the LSB Players.  Order by phone (978-443-8957) or online at www.sudburypizza.net.

Register for youth baseball this spring

Teams are being formed and uniforms are being ordered for youth baseball in Lincoln and Sudbury with appropriate Covid-19 safety protocols. Register your child now at LSBaseball.org (registration closes for some grades on Friday, March 5).  Click on the appropriate grade range, and then look for “Register Online.”  Additional information is on the Parents tab of the website. Youth baseball in Lincoln starts with T-ball for boys and girls currently in kindergarten, or those entering kindergarten in the fall. Please contact Chris Andrysiak (chris.andrysiak@gmail.com) with questions.  

Speaker series on connecting nature and communities of color

“On Belonging in Outdoors Spaces” is a free virtual speaker series running until June featuring prominent speakers whose are advancing efforts to strengthen belonging and connection between communities of color and the benefits of time in nature. The series is organized by the Lincoln Land Conservation Trust, the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Farrington Nature Linc, The Food Project, Mass Audubon, and The Walden Woods Project.

First up in the series is “Meaningful Nature Engagement in Stressed Populations” with Akiima Price on Wednesday, March 10 at 7 p.m. Her innovative programming strategies feature nature as a powerful medium to connect stressed youth, adults, and families in meaningful and positive experiences. She is a former National Park Service Interpretation Ranger and has worked for national work with environmental and social service organizations. Other speakers in the series will be Evelyn Rydz, Dr. Monica White, and Dr. J. Drew Lanham.

To register for any or all of the presentations, visit www.onbelongingoutdoors.org. Additional support is provided by the Ogden Codman Trust, the Lincoln Garden Club, and the Bemis Free Lecture Series.

The route and stop for the Lincoln MBTA shuttle bus. The routing is in lavender and the bus stop location is in blue. Keolis will have a member of staff directing customers to the bus stop from the other car park to the south for the duration of the closure. (Click to enlarge)

Shuttle bus schedule for commuter rail

The Fitchburg commuter rail line that includes Lincoln is closed for installation of Positive Train Control technology until May 2 and will be replaced by shuttle buses. The MBTA bas released this shuttle schedule.

New Lincoln Conservation Director takes the reins

By Maureen Belt

Lincoln’s new Conservation Director, Michele Grzenda, is an outdoor enthusiast who, by her own account, “pretty much eats, sleeps, and breathes nature.”

If she’s not kayaking, identifying bird calls for tourists, or hiking trails, Grzenda is backpacking through the great outdoors on snowshoes. Last March, she chose Lincoln’s vast green spaces as the ambiance for an important life event: her wedding day.  

Just as Covid-19 restrictions were beginning, Grzenda married her “forever soulmate,” Josh, a like-minded nature lover she met through her work with the Appalachian Mountain Club. Weston Town Clerk Deborah Davenport, her then-colleague, officiated the March 20, 2020 nuptials. The rocking horses of Lincoln’s Ponyhenge, some donning wedding finery, bore witness. 

“It was a spontaneous wedding,” Grzenda said via a Zoom call with the Lincoln Squirrel last week. “It was absolutely perfect.”

Michele Grzenda and her husband Josh on their wedding day at Lincoln’s Ponyhenge in March 2020. (Photo by Emily Schadler)

Grzenda was speaking from inside (a rare setting indeed) in her new Lincoln office. Plaques touting her many academic and professional achievements leaned against the wall behind her, waiting to be hung. Anyway, office beautification is not Grzenda’s top priority — instead, it’s protecting Lincoln’s wetlands, open spaces, and native species.

Grzenda (pronounced Gris-END-a), started on February 1 and succeeded Tom Gumbart, who held the position for nearly 21 years. Her background includes lots of experience in wetlands protection, both as the state and local levels, outreach and education programs, bird surveys, plant and wildlife protection, and even the evolution of New England landscapes since colonization. 

Lincoln’s conservation concerns (much like those in Weston, where Grzenda served as the Conservation Administrator for 12 years, and Framingham, where she served for five), have their own unique features and challenges, so she wants to know the lay of the land before taking action. “I still need to do a lot of learning,”  she said.

Lincoln is not foreign to Grzenda. Before moving to Newton last year, she lived here for 13 years and could cross-country ski to work in Weston. She also served nine years on Lincoln’s Open Space & Recreation Plan Committee. 

Grzenda is excited to meet and work alongside the members of the many partnerships and the residents who voluntarily share their passions and expertise with the department. She wants to set up educational programs to teach residents about the trails, woodlands, open spaces, farmlands, and the importance of land stewardship — not just for public land, but for their own properties.

Ideally, she said, more residents would become “pollinators,” meaning they would learn how to replace the invasive plants species on their own properties with indigenous flora that attract native insects, birds and animals. “Pollinating benefits the nature of Lincoln as a whole,” she said.

Educational programs also include teaching about the benefits of the natural world and Grzenda looks forward to continuing Gumbart’s spring and fall nature walks for all ages and accessibilities.

Her position in Weston allowed her to work with the public schools, something she hopes to do in Lincoln as well. And just like iconic naturalist Henry David Thoreau, Grzenda wants learning to take place beyond the brick and mortar (and Zoom and Google Classroom.)

“I want to utilize the open spaces as nature’s classroom,” she said. 

She especially wants to reach adults who have never experienced the joy of hiking trials, identifying birds, or just sitting by a river. “If they didn’t have an awareness of nature as kids, they may have received conflicting messages as adults,” she said. For example, instead of seeing a pond as a picturesque habitat, some may only see the threat of drowning. They may not understand how certain animals and insects — particularly the less cuddly ones — are invaluable to the ecosystem. Grzenda wants to ensure everyone has a healthy perspective. 

Being out and about in the natural world has always been Grzenda’s passion, but it was an elective course in environmental science during her junior year in high school in Wrentham that steered her toward her professional path. 

“It really opened my eyes to pursuing a career in environmental sciences,” she said. “I always loved nature as a kid. The woods were my sanctuary. That was the place I always wanted to be, and I just wanted to learn more.”

Grzenda earned degrees in environmental science and wildlife management at the University of New Hampshire. She then interned with the Massachusetts Audubon Society, and held positions with the society and the Sudbury Valley Trustees before working for municipalities. She has published papers and teaches community education courses, and she’s led more than 200 hikes for the Appalachian Mountain Club. 

“Lincoln is a community with strong wetland protection bylaws and organizations that promote green spaces, and that understands how important it is to have the resources to maintain these things,” Grzenda said. “It’s a wonderful example of a community that clearly values open space and provides an opportunity for residents to get outside and find a patchwork of nature within walking distance, so they can feel connected to the plants and animals among us.” 

My Turn: The latest on Lincoln’s twisted tree

By Cathy Moritz

The Lincoln Garden Club and the Friends of the Lincoln Library are jointly sponsoring efforts to preserve the Library’s twisted Catalpa tree. The Garden Club and FOLL retained certified arborist Jonathan Bransfield of Bransfield Tree Co. to perform a significant preservation project on the tree in December 2020.  We send our thanks to Jonathan for this and prior work he has done on our iconic tree. 

Here is Jonathan’s description of the project:

“The Twisted Catalpa tree at the Lincoln Library was likely installed somewhere in the 1910s and its age is really starting to show, especially the condition of that curiously twisted stem… it’s as hollow as a soda straw and highly vulnerable to breaking apart in a storm. An analogy I like to use to help think about the structural issues of trees is that of an antique home: imagine renovating an old house with new insulation, plumbing, windows etc., it also has an old fieldstone foundation that is caving in and needs to be rebuilt. Similarly, a very old tree can have all its roots, soil, foliage, and cambium tuned up and working just great, but where a house can be jacked up to have a new foundation built under it, trees have no such therapy to rebuild a decayed core. All the old-school methods of cavity filling with concrete or other materials have been thoroughly debunked.  

An aerial view of the cabling work that was done in December.

“Maybe someday we will have the technology to reconstruct decayed heartwood, but until that time there are two arrows in our quiver to preserve decaying trees years into the future, and both were applied to our beloved catalpa. First was cabling. Cables work really well to add structural integrity to a spreading tree canopy, and in this case we used a noninvasive type that doesn’t require drilling into the wood. By cabling opposing limbs to each other with a hub and spoke formation, the forces of wind or ice pulling on a limb are distributed throughout the whole tree. For the second step we did some judicious pruning out on the tips of limbs. By shortening long and reaching limbs we reduce the potential weather forces that can bear down on that limb. It’s a lot harder to hold a weight with your arm fully outstretched than with it tucked in even a few inches. Our special lift equipment makes it possible to do this tip pruning surgically with full control of the cut. 

“There are few guarantees with big, old decaying trees in this age of increasing storm intensity and damage. I have been enjoying the sight of this highly unique plant for 30 years, and I hope we will get at least another 30 together. How did this tree get its shape? My vote is with human manipulation, and I will be working on growing reproductions of it from its very own progeny. Hopefully we will have grown something equally as wonderful when this specimen finally passes on.”

Moritz is the coordinator for the Lincoln Catalpa Committee.

”My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.

Planning Board sets hearings on zoning bylaw amendments

Amendments to the town’s accessory apartment regulations and new zoning language for stormwater management will be the subject of Planning Board public hearings on Monday, March 9 starting at 7:15 p.m. 

If approved, the zoning bylaw would add a cap on the number of accessory apartments allowed, equal to 5% of all residential units in Lincoln. The board also proposes to remove limitations on the age of structures that are eligible to add accessory apartments, and to require a minimum rental term of 30 days where the accessory apartment or principal dwelling is occupied as a rental unit.

The town approved the Affordable Accessory Apartment program four years ago, but it was only recently that the state officially OK’d it, so the local rules needed some tweaks before the program launches.

A separate hearing at 7:30 p.m. will seek comment on the proposed addition of a new zoning bylaw section titled “Illicit Discharge Control and Stormwater Management Bylaw,” the purpose of which is to protect water quality and comply with federal requirements. If approved by the Planning Board, both sets of changes will go before residents at the Annual Town Meting in May.

Also at the board’s March 9 meeting, the Historic District Commission will make presentations on the proposed addition of 11 Moccasin Hill Rd. to the Brown’s Wood Historic District, and 126 Old Concord Rd. to the Lincoln Historic District.

For more information, see the agenda and the Zoom link for the meeting.

Town seeks volunteers for new Inclusion, Equity, Diversity and Anti-Racism Initiative

The Board of Selectmen voted on February 22 to establish the Inclusion, Equity, Diversity, and Anti-Racism Initiative (“IDEA” or “Initiative”) and finalize the Initiative’s charge, and they are now seeking  volunteers. If interested, please complete this volunteer form and send it with a note of interest to Peggy Elder at elderp@lincolntown.org by Wednesday, March 31.

Embedded in our town vision statement is a commitment to fostering economic, racial, ethnic, and age diversity within Lincoln. This longstanding commitment was brought into sharper focus and scrutiny last spring after the murder of George Floyd. Members of our community responded to that tragedy by organizing vigils, reading and discussing books that address systemic racism, and by asking town government to explicitly examine the systems and actions of our own town. In response, the Board of Selectmen launched a series of events to expand understanding of the current state and attitudes of policing, social services, and land planning in Lincoln, the roles and jurisdictions of town committees, and to explore partnerships with community groups and institutions.

Through these conversations, town residents have made it clear that they want to engage in candid discussions about what diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism look like in Lincoln, and to establish a long-term, town-led group that will keep Lincoln’s vision of fostering and supporting diversity at the center of all we do.

The board is establishing IDEA to recognize and support diversity for all who live, work, learn, and visit in Lincoln, and to develop a long-term action plan to identify and address unconscious bias, to ensure just and equitable policies and inclusion, and to actively promote a diverse and anti-racist community.

The IDEA Initiative is envisioned as a partnership between the town and community groups and institutions. It shall consist of up to 11 voting members, eight of whom are at-large members of the community. In addition, IDEA will encourage liaisons from groups not already represented by a voting member and explicitly reach out to the community for broad participation. Read the complete IDEA charge here.

The board recognizes that the work of IDEA will be dynamic and will need to develop as the group engages with the community, therefore the charge is intended as a set of guideposts for the Initiative as it begins its work.  IDEA will make quarterly reports to the board and will recommend a longer-term action plan and an initial vision for a standing committee by Town Meeting 2022.

My Turn: Support Heather Cowap for L-S School Committee

By Carole Kasper

Many thanks for the opportunity to serve on the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional School Committee since my election in 2018. I am writing to express gratitude for this role, while also letting you know that I have decided not to seek re-election during this 2021 election cycle. I would like to introduce an exciting candidate for the L-S School Committee seat that I will be vacating later this spring.

Her name is Heather Cowap, settled in Lincoln following a move from Boxborough in recent years. Her now-adult children attended Boxborough public schools K-8 before attending Acton-Boxborough Regional High School. Along the way, she developed a deep understanding of the “smaller town sharing a regional high school with a larger town” dynamic — she also spent 15 years as a teacher in the Science Department of Groton-Dunstable Regional High School.

During her career, Heather she has also served on multiple accreditation committees on behalf of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC). Now retired, she says she is seeking a large volunteer role, one in which she can continue to apply her skills as an education professional while also contributing significantly to her local community. I strongly support Heather’s candidacy, and I invite you to join in this support.

For me, it has been an honor to serve and work diligently for L-S students and families. I supported the work of the Racial Climate Task Force, while also serving on both School Start Time Subcommittees, the Safety Review Subcommittee, the L-S Safety Council, the OPEB Trust Committee, the Strategic Planning Subcommittee, and the Strategic Planning Steering Committee. I had the opportunity to shepherd the L-S annual budget each of the past three years, serving as L-S liaison to Lincoln’s Select Board, Finance Committee, and Capital Planning Committee.

I enjoyed collaborating with administrators at both L-S and the Lincoln Public Schools to innovate a middle-school-to-high-school transition-planning process for Lincoln students and families who are heading into their L-S years. The “Life at L-S” 8th-to-9th-grade program is now in its fifth year, consistently garnering positive and appreciative feedback. The “Intro to L-S” program, an information session and tour opportunity for Lincoln middle school families wanting to see and learn about L-S offerings early on in their family high school planning process, is also well established and will continue in future years.

Thank you for the community trust you placed in me as a member of the L-S School Committee for these past three years. Please join me now in electing Heather Cowap to the L-S School Committee on town Election Day — Monday, March 29th!

”My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.

Schools begin pool testing for Covid-19; one positive case last week

One school employee on the Lincoln preK-8 campus tested positive for Covid-19 last week after the town’s schools began pool testing of some students and staff.

Under the voluntary six-week program that began shortly after the end of February school vacation, participating Lincoln Public School (LPS) students and staff provide a weekly sample via a quick, noninvasive lower nasal swab. The samples from each classroom are tested as a pool using the common PCR test. If a pool returns a positive result, the members of that pool are immediately tested individually using the BinaxNow rapid test.  

In the first week of testing, 578 school community members in 74 pools underwent pool testing. This included 52% of eligible students (72% of the Lincoln campus students and 33% of the Hanscom campus students) as well as 73% of eligible staff. Students and staff who are on campus full time and who have not tested positive for Covid-19 in the past 90 days are eligible for testing after they sign a consent form.

The person who tested positive was asymptomatic, but all of their close contacts were identified and notified that they must quarantine at home for 14 days dating from their last exposure with the positive individual. As a result, two classroom cohorts of students and staff as well as two additional individuals were moved to remote learning for their quarantine period, according to Superintendent of Schools Becky McFall.

If someone in a child’s pool tests positive, parents will receive a direct notification and information about the follow-up testing. A general notification will be made each week when all test results have been received and no further results are outstanding.

“While it is never good to learn of someone in our community testing positive, it is helpful to know that the pooled testing process worked and identified an asymptomatic positive person who was unaware that they had contracted the virus,” McFall said in a statement to families and staff. “That is exactly what pooled testing should do to help us ensure that viral spread is minimized. Pooled testing is most effective when everyone who is able to participate gets tested.”

Eligible students and staff who have not yet signed a consent form can participate in future testing if they submit a consent form by noon on Thursday to be included in the following week’s testing pools. Consent forms and details on the program are available on the LPS Pooled Testing web page.

The testing program was launched after the schools saw increased numbers of positive cases and close contacts in the weeks following the Thanksgiving recess and December vacation period. Last week, the school nurse on the Lincoln campus recorded 70 students who traveled out of state over the February vacation. Only 15 of these were known in advance. On the Hanscom campus, administrators know of 24 students who traveled; 18 were known in advance.

“We appreciate that many families provided the necessary test result documentation upon return to school. Students who came to school without travel notification or test results were sent home from school when information about their travel became known,” McFall wrote.

The testing program is funded by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and supported by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

Student/staff survey reveals mixed feelings

In a mid-year survey of staff and students, 84% of families and 54% of faculty and staff reported feeling “extremely safe” or “quite safe” at school from Covid-19 with the current safety protocols. Asked how their children are feeling about school this year, 75–90% families reported that their kids have felt “safe,” “engaged,” “happy,” “excited,” and/or “hopeful” — though only 59% of remote students felt excited about school, vs. 80% of in-person students.

Faculty were also asked how they felt about work, whether in-school or remote, and a majority (62–94%) reporting feeling exhausted, stressed out, and/or overwhelmed. More than 80% of faculty and staff said their work felt “extremely or quite meaningful,” though only 56% said they felt extremely or quite effective at their job.

“When you are teaching in an entirely new model, and you are teaching students who are remote and not in front of you, and you teach with masks on and can’t see each others’ faces, it’s hard to gauge your impact,” said LPS Director of Technology Rob Ford, who announced the survey results at the School Committee’s January 28 meeting.

LPS is among only 3% of Massachusetts school districts that are providing a full-day, full-week in-person option along with a remote learning option. In both models, students are grouped in small cohorts with one learning coach and receive additional real-time instruction via technology. As of January 7, 273 students (26%) are learning remotely and 795 students (74%) are at school, the School Committee reported.

Turenne restaurant to open in Lincoln in April

This Lincoln Station property will soon host its fourth restaurant.

There’s a new restaurant in town — or there will be, when Turenne opens in April in the space most recently occupied by Real.

Tim and Bronwyn Wiechmann already run several food ventures in Somerville: Bronwyn, T&B Pizza, and Turenne (a “pop-up” takeout bagel/patisserie/restaurant within T&B Pizza). Others of their restaurants have come and gone, including Self Portrait/T.W. Food and Playska in Cambridge. Tim Wiechmann was named Best Chef (general excellence) by Boston Magazine in 2015.

Turenne in Lincoln succeeds Real, which was owned jointly by Lindsay Parker of Concord and Tom Fosnot and Ruth-Anne Adams of Sudbury but closed in November 2020 after less than two years of operation. The lease continues with Parker as sole owner of Turenne, said Geoff McGean, executive director of the Rural Land Foundation, which owns the property. 

The Boston Globe reported on February 25 that the new Lincoln restaurant would feature a pizza oven, live music, a wine shop, and provisions, but this could not be confirmed. The Wiechmanns did not respond directly to an email and voicemail from the Lincoln Squirrel, and Parker deferred to public statements by the RLF and the restaurateurs.

“We look forward to bringing back socially distanced dinner service in the dining room, on the terrace, as takeout and, in an especially exciting new additional dining room on the green in front of the restaurant that the Rural Land Foundation has so generously allowed us to create in hopes of serving the community in as many ways as possible in this still complicated moment for restaurants,” the three restaurateurs wrote. “We’ll share more soon, but in the meantime you can anticipate an early April start for dinner service Thursday thru Saturday with a la carte offerings and perhaps a prix fixe.”

“I hope you all will join us in giving them a warm welcome and wishing them, and our community, much success with this new endeavor,” said RLF/Lincoln Land Conservation Trust chair Michelle Barnes in a statement accompanying the one by the restaurant owners. “Our vigorous support of them will help that success come to fruition, and help make the mall an even more vibrant and exciting place to be for our community. And it wouldn’t be a message from me if I didn’t add that your support of the businesses at the mall helps sustain our conservation efforts in Lincoln.”

Fosnot and Adams now cook and deliver meals as Food for Home. After Real closed, the pair told former customers in a group email that Parker had sued them. The allegations and current status of that suit are unclear.

Turenne will be the fourth restaurant to occupy the Lincoln space. Preceding it were Real and Lincoln Kitchen, which closed in May 2018 after just 15 months. AKA Bistro was successful for several years until its closure in May 2016. Contributing to its demise was the lengthy closure of nearby Donelan’s after its roof collapsed in a snowstorm in February 2011, significantly reducing business traffic for the entire mall, and the closure of AKA itself for several months starting in December 2013 after a burst ceiling pipe caused extensive interior water damage.

Some town buildings set to reopen

Effective Monday, March 8, the Town Office Building, the Lincoln Public Library, and Bemis Hall will reopen to the public, subject to the continuation of health and safety protocols recommended by the Department of Public Health (mandatory face masks, social distancing, occupancy limits, front desk registration to enable contact tracing should it become necessary, etc.). 

The state’s decision to move forward to the next reopening phase is in response to significantly improving public health trend data. Local conditions have been trending in the same manner. Gov. Baker has issued guidance for reopenings to begin on March 1, but Lincoln is delaying by a week to provide town staff the opportunity to adjust child care and other personal arrangements.

To protect the health and safety of our residents and staff, Lincoln officials continue to urge the public to make use of the town’s online transactional capabilities, consider communicating with town staff via phone or Zoom conferencing, schedule appointments in advance where possible, and be sure to follow health and safety protocols when visiting town buildings.

Town boards and committees will continue to meet remotely as we enter this next phase of reopening.

Library reference staff who have been working entirely remotely will be back in the building during the day starting on Monday, March 1. This means they can return to pulling items that are in the library and putting them out for same-day pickup. They will also be available by email and phone to answer patron questions and assist with contactless pickup preparation.

Remote reference service will continue during evening hours on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 6–7:30 p.m. The library will reopen to the public by appointment on Monday, March 8 at 1 p.m. Check the library’s website at www.lincolnpl.org.

News acorns

Interfaith Taizé service on Feb. 26

People of all faiths and people in search of faith are invited to join youth from St. Joseph’s/Julia’s Parish and the First Parish in Lincoln as they present a Taizé service on Friday, Feb. 26 at 7 p.m. via Zoom. Taizé is a monastic community in Taizé, France with an ecumenical emphasis as expressed on their website, which says the community “wants its life to be a sign of reconciliation between divided Christians and between separated peoples.” A Taizé worship service involves sung and chanted prayers, meditation, a period of silence, and liturgical readings. There is no preaching. This style of prayer has attracted many worshipers from around the globe and from many different denominations. Services are usually candlelit, so please have a candle ready when you join using this Zoom link (meeting ID: 954 7757 9039, passcode: 405331).

Weekend Winter Carnival fun

  • The Parks and Recreation Department is hosting a free online chess tournament as part of the Winter Carnival weekend on Saturday, Feb. 27. Registration begins at 8 a.m.; matches run from 9 a.m.–1 p.m. All levels are welcome. You’ll need to create an account at Chess.com to participate. Once you have a username, you will need to join the Lincoln Mass Chess Club. There will be a beginners section (999 and under rapid rating) and a section for those with more experience (rapid rating at 1000 or over). There will be four rounds. Each player will have 15 minutes per match plus 10 seconds per move (rapid 15/10). It will be helpful if you play a few rapid 15/10 matches prior to the tournament so that your rating is fairly accurate. There will be trophies for first and second place for both sections. 
  • The Lincoln Family Association and the Kat Chapman Band are hosting a family-friendly acoustic concert and dance party on Sunday, Feb. 28 from 10–10:30 a.m. on Zoom. Costumes welcome! Those who register can pick up a kazoo and glow stick in the Codman Barn ahead of time (one per per child while supplies last; mask required for pickup). Click here for the concert Zoom link.

No commuter trains from March 1–April 30

The MBTA has informed the Town that there will be Service Changes on the Fitchburg Line so that upgrades can be made for Positive Train Control for a safer commuter rail. No trains will be running on Lincoln’s Fitchburg line from March 1 through April 30 so the MBTA  can make Positive Train Control safety upgrades. Shuttle service will be provided Monday through Friday (since there is currently no weekend train service, there will be no shuttle service on the weekends). For more information and the schedule, click here.