"Shutesbury- Where hunters and vegans are neighbors & friends"

Some of my favorite slogans submitted to the 250th committee:
(for a full list http://shutesbury.org/250th_contributed_slogans)
 

10. Shutesbury: Where the town is high up and so are the taxes

9.   It’s always interesting

8.   It’s different (But not as different as Wendell)

7.   How come I don’t smell anything?

6.   Your cell phones are useless here

5.   Like Mayberry, only groovier

4.   Where hunters and vegans are neighbors and friends

3.   When there’s a town meeting, Whole Foods is empty.

2.   Looking down on Amherst for 250 years

1.   Always cooler

"Always Cooler" has been a good slogan for our anniversary year and there has been discussion about keeping the logo/slogan beyond the anniversary year.







The Shutesbury 250th anniversary Steering Committee is a selectboard-appointed town committee that has been meeting since the Spring of 2009 to prepare and recommend a program of festivities to mark the 250th anniversary of Shutesbury’s incorporation.



















Volunteers are how things get done in a small town. The government is us! The process is transparent and inclusive and all meetings are open to the public. If you have an opinion or want to be heard, this is your opportunity. Get involved!

 

It's been a fun-filled year of community celebration.  We came together for a variety of events and there was a high level of participation and enthusiasm.




















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At yesterday's 250th steering committee meeting there was a pall cast over us and it was hard to think of the community moving forward as enthusiastically as we did during our anniversary year.

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It is disheartening to see people reject repeated invitations to join in the process and nonparticipants vote down years of invested town money and volunteer labor.

The community is deeply divided over plans to build a new free Public Library. While fear of the future and economic hard times are on the side of the opposition, the library in Shutesbury continues to benefit from a long tradition of passionate library support started with William Hemenway and Mirick Spear and continuing with the anonymous donor of a recent leadership challenge gift of $150,000.

 

It behooves us to work together as we go forward as a community to craft our future, our legacy .