FEBRUARY and MARCH

The committee continues work on the grant proposal. Groups interested in writing a letter of support should contact Chris Kirk. Hopefully, there will be little vandalism and many people will be able to enjoy winter activities in the park. Maybe there will be enough snow for snowshoeing.

Depending on the weather, work parties will start again on the second Saturday of March or April from 9-12 AM. All Shrewsbury residents and friends from other towns are invited to help. Members of the steering committee will be on hand to direct activities.

JANUARY

The steering committee has started work on the grant proposal. They held a meeting at the Black Diamond on December 27, 2006 and a meeting with the We wish to thank Rep. Polito and the town departments for their assistance in this process. We are encouraging groups that have worked on the park and those groups who will utilize the park to send letters of support for the grant. Letters should be sent to Chris Kirk at cwkirk@aol.com or mailed to Rep. Polito. Chris is heading up the grant subcommittee.

Shrewsbury Girl Scouts held a Winter Outdoor Day at the park on January 20th from 1-3 PM to celebrate Girl Scout Thinking Day. Over 60 Girl Scouts with their families and leaders braved the cold and had fun enjoying a wide variety of outdoor activities.

DECEMBER

The speaker at Garden Club yesterday was Pat Bigelow who serves on all kinds of environmental committees. She was talking about invasive plants and, lo and behold, Dot Perkins thinks the euonymus that a friend was offering is okay to donate to the Prospect Park garden. We assume it's the green and white varigated type? The kind that is verbotin is Euonymus aiatus which is what is commonly known as Burning Bush. There seems to be an endless number of euonymuses!

Dot Perkins contacted Representative Karyn Polito about the state grant. She spoke with Mike Hale about it, thinking this wasn't something the park committee could just do solo. A meeting was set for late December.

OCTOBER

October 11th will probably be our last planned workday for '06, and it is kind of a "gentlemen's workday", although ladies are welcome. Our job will be to spread some gravel that Rocco Trotto of Worcester Sand and Gravel has donated for the entrance area. Only tools needed are a heavy-duty rake and, perhaps, a shovel. Bill Davis estimates it will take about 6 man hours to spread what he's not already done, so if we have 6 men, it'll take about an hour, etc. The gravel, which at first was thought to be too full of dirt, has proven to settle in and be just the ticket. We really appreciate Rocco's donation. [He plans on donating some pea stone for the outer entrance and fill for the pool next spring.]

The only other possibility for Saturday would be some work with a chain saw cutting small sapling type trees which our young 'guests' have been bending and breaking in order to have some sort of duels.