Buckland Council on Aging hosting Conversation Café

SHELBURNE FALLS — The Buckland Council on Aging will host a Conversation Café on Tuesday, Nov. 7, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the Senior Center in Shelburne Falls.

“Spending Grant Money on Ourselves” is the theme, and guest speakers will be Franklin Regional Council of Governments Community Health Program Manager Rachel Stoler and Regional Public Health Nurse Meg Ryan. They are who introduced the group to the Mass in Motion grant initiative, which this year enabled the Senior Center to purchase benches for four walkways in the community.

Stoler and Ryan will speak about the next round of Mass in Motion grants.

Soup and desserts will be served. Sign up at the Senior Center at 7 Main St. or by calling 413-625-2502 by Nov. 1.

Rowe residents invited to forum on Open Space and Recreation Plan

ROWE — The town is hosting a public forum to review a draft of the Rowe Climate-Resilient Open Space and Recreation Plan.

The hybrid meeting will be held Wednesday, Nov. 1, at 6 p.m. in person at the Town Hall and via Zoom.

Residents interested in attending virtually may access the meeting at bit.ly/RoweNov1.

The meeting will be immediately followed at 7.30 p.m. by a public feedback meeting for the Pelham Lake Park Forest Stewardship Plan.

Members of the Open Space and Recreation Committee met from March 2022 through September 2023 to develop the town’s first Open Space and Recreation Plan.

The action plan has been developed using information from a community survey the committee released in the fall of 2022, which received 61 responses from residents.

The Open Space and Recreation Plan inventories cultural, natural and recreational resources in Rowe, and identifies the ways open space and recreation opportunities can be improved to meet the needs of residents and increase resilience to the impacts of climate change.

It also includes an action plan for the next seven years focused on ways the community can protect and manage forests and other undeveloped lands, protect surface waters and groundwater, minimize impacts from flooding, and improve access to and management of Pelham Lake Park and Rowe’s other recreation areas and facilities.

Interested residents can learn about climate resilience and the purpose of an Open Space and Recreation Plan, as well as read summaries of Rowe’s plan at tinyurl.com/ClimateResilientRoweOSRP.

A full draft of the plan will be posted to the Rowe town website on Nov. 1.

The Open Space and Recreation Committee hopes to hear from residents about the draft plan during the public forum, or during the public comment period, which will be open until Dec. 1. Comments can be emailed to Tamsin Flanders at the Franklin Regional Council of Governments at tflanders@frcog.org.