Thanks to Eden Climo for coordinating volunteers to decorate our island for Christmas. As mentioned last week, Wayne Closson’s Landscape business, which for many years has hung the Christmas decorations on public buildings and businesses around Southport and erected the lighted figures around the pond on school grounds, is no longer operating. She has some volunteers but could use more. Even if you do not want to climb ladders, there is plenty of other work to be done. Many thanks, Eden, for muscling this community effort along. Please contact her if you can help.

If you are interested in proposed amendments to Southport’s Land Use Ordinance, please attend and make your voice heard at the Southport Planning Board’s workshop to be held at the town hall on Wednesday, Nov. 22 at 5 p.m. Our town runs better if those with thoughts and ideas contribute them to the discussion. If changes are to be made, they will be voted on at the town meeting in March.

Perhaps we will be able to dust off our ice skates and have some skating opportunities again on the school grounds. Our generous community donated more than enough money to build the planned woods playground behind the school so that some of that money is available to buy and assemble a safer skating rink on school property. As you many remember, children used to skate, when safe, on the school pond, but concerns about the depth of the pond and therefore the students’ safety has negated that activity for the last several years. The school still stores skates and helmets for youngsters to learn and enjoy this activity, so a committee is working on finding the best seasonable rink to buy, the ice on which would freeze quicker and would be much safer. Stay tuned.

Thanks to Claire Tomlin who volunteered to refresh the gardens in front of the town hall. For a while I think the some of the road crew undertook that project, but the plants seemed to have been left to themselves recently.

Plans and shopping efforts have been underway to buy a new school bus for the town. The hope is that the bus can be in operation next year, if not by the end of this year. Interesting that buying a new bus is so complicated, but then isn’t everything these days!

The Climate Action Team presented their report to the Selectmen last Wednesday night at their weekly meeting. I suspect you can get a copy of the report at the town hall, and perhaps there is a separate article with more details elsewhere in this paper.

About 30-40 people attended Southporter Paul Zalucky’s talk about Ukraine at the Harbor Theater, Monday, Nov. 13. They watched a movie about Ukraine and after Paul’s talk, had a chance to ask questions. Paul described Putin’s goal is to destroy Ukraine as a nation and bring it back under Russian control. Fighting the Russians is apparently nothing new as Paul says Ukraine has been fighting Russia for 400 years. Even the Ukrainian language is more European than slavic, a source for 52 percent of the Russian language. To learn more about this conflict, look for “Eastern Front,” a film by John Sweeney. In an interview by Kylv Post, Mr. Sweeney concludes by saying “Ukraine is fighting for a better future. Russia is fighting for a darker past.”

As Thanksgiving approaches, and with two wars dominating the news, we in the United States have much to be thankful for, but ‘thanks’ alone will not keep us safe. We all need to think, study, listen, and engage to keep our country’s values strong. And above all, ‘be kind.” Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.