Around Town 1/12/23: Blue Hill Co-op & Patrons Help Address Food Insecurity in Hancock County

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

This week:
This week we’re in Hancock County where the Blue Hill Coop and their customers are working together to address food insecurity. Jennifer Coolidge, Ownership & Outreach Coordinator at the co-op, is here with all the details about their Change For Good and Soup-er Bowl programs.

About the host:
Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU’s News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices, Maine Currents and Maine: The Way Life Could Be, Amy also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and Maine Association of Broadcasters awards for her work in 2017 and 2021.

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 1/12/23: ChatGBT

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

ChatGPT has caused quite of lot of online buzz of late, and there are good reasons. In case you aren’t familiar with what ChatGPT can do, or are wondering about some of the implications, both good and bad, of its use, here is a start. And, just because, we note a few other recent items that most of us wish weren’t happening.

About the host:
Jim Campbell has a longstanding interest in the intersection of digital technology, law, and public policy and how they affect our daily lives in our increasingly digital world. He has banged around non-commercial radio for decades and, in the little known facts department (that should probably stay that way), he was one of the readers voicing Richard Nixon’s words when NPR broadcast the entire transcript of the Watergate tapes. Like several other current WERU volunteers, he was at the station’s sign-on party on May 1, 1988 and has been a volunteer ever since doing an early stint as a Morning Maine host, and later producing WERU program series including Northern Lights, Conversations on Science and Society, Sound Portrait of the Artist, Selections from the Camden Conference, others that will probably come to him after this is is posted, and, of course, Notes from the Electronic Cottage.

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Talk of the Towns 1/11/23: “Forever Wild” Conservation Easement Downeast

Producer/Hosts: Ron Beard and Liz Graves
Theme music for Talk of the Towns Theme music for Talk of the Towns is a medley from Coronach, on a Balnain House Highland Music recording.

Talk of the Towns: Local Community concerns and opportunities

This month:
We look at the recent “forever wild” protection of 3200 acres of land near the Whalesback, along Route 9 in Aurora, featuring Aaron Dority, Executive Director, Frenchman Bay Conservancy, Malcolm Hunter, donor, for-ever wild conservation easement, Aurora, and Sophie Ehrhardt, coordinator of the Wildlands Partnership Program. This protection also helps with climate change by allowing the forest to store carbon as the forest continues to grow and change naturally.

-What is the (brief) history of land conservation in Maine?
-What do we (society) gain from protecting or conserving land? What are “environmental services” how are they promoted in “forever wild protection”? What benefits do wildlife derive from large land tract protection/corridors? What other tangible and intangible benefits do humans derive from conserved land?
-What led to the protection of the Whalesback in Aurora? How did this partnership develop? What were some of the steps in the process? Who are the other significant partners and what were their roles?
-What do we know about the 3223 acres of land that are protected by these new conservation easements? Where is it located? Why is it significant? How does this fit into overall resource conservation for the region?
-Not envisioned as a benefit in early land conservation, mitigation of climate change is now a part of this and other land conservation strategies… what are those benefits and how Northeast Wilderness Trust’s carbon offset program work?

Guest/s:
Aaron Dority, Executive Director, Frenchman Bay Conservancy
Malcolm Hunter, donor, for-ever wild conservation easement, Aurora
Sophie Ehrhardt, coordinator of the Wildlands Partnership Program of Northeast Wilderness Trust

About the hosts:

Ron Beard is producer and host of Talk of the Towns, which first aired on WERU in 1993 as part of his community building work as an Extension professor with University of Maine Cooperative Extension and Sea Grant. He took all the journalism courses he could fit in while an undergraduate student in wildlife management and served as an intern with Maine Public Television nightly newscast in the early 1970s. Ron is an adjunct faculty member at College of the Atlantic, teaching courses on community development. Ron served on the Bar Harbor Town Council for six years and is currently board chair for the Jesup Memorial Library in Bar Harbor, where he has lived since 1975. Look for him on the Allagash River in June, and whenever he can get away, in the highlands of Scotland where he was fortunate to spend two sabbaticals.

Liz Graves joined Talk of the Towns as co-producer and co-host in July 2022, having long admired public affairs programming on WERU and dreamed of getting involved in community radio. She works as the Town Clerk for the Town of Bar Harbor, and is a former editor of the Mount Desert Islander weekly newspaper. Liz grew up in California and came to Maine as a schooner sailor.

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BoatTalk 1/10/23: Whale Entanglements, Part 2

Producers/Hosts: Alan Sprague, Jon Johansen
Engineers: Pepin Mittelhauser, Amy Browne

BoatTalk is the call-in show for people contemplating things naval

This month: A follow-up show from the Dec 13, 2022 show with several knowledgeable people talking about whale entanglements. Also the boatyard report and a discussion of the golden globe race and more.

Guest/s:
Peter Stein Scientifics Solutions, Portland, Me.
Jeremy Willey Lobsterman, Owls Head
Rep. William “Billy Bob” Faulkingham, House Republican Leader, Maine State Legislature

About the hosts:

Alan Sprague is a retired boat carpenter and a volunteer at WERU for over thirty years. He and the late Mike Joyce started Boattalk in 2003 and Alan carries on.

Jon Johansen is the editor and roving reporter for the Maine Coastal News. He is Chairman of the Board of the Penobscot Marine Museum, President of Maine Built Boats, President of Maine Lobster Boat Racing, and Director of the International Maritime Library in his spare time.

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Outside the Box 1/10/23: “Supermarket Adventures”

Producer/Host: Larry Dansinger

About the host:
Larry Dansinger (no pronouns) of Bangor came to Maine in 1974 and has been here ever since. Some of Larry’s activities since then: Done community organizing on numerous issues through INVERT and then Resources for Organizing and Social Change (ROSC), committed civil disobedience several times, grown a garden yearly since 1977, joined various food cooperatives and two men’s groups, refused to pay federal income taxes for war, lived on a community land trust for 23 years, and met a wonderful partner whom Larry has loved for over 40 years. Larry has produced Outside the Box features on WERU since 2007 and continues to look for unique ways of seeing almost any problem or situation.

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The Nature of Phenology 1/7/23: Frozen puddles

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn
Host: Hazel Stark

Freezing can cause even something as simple and uninspired as a puddle in the middle of a gray forest to be transformed into an ethereal and ephemeral work of art. But how?

Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com

About the host/writers:
Joe Horn lives in Gouldsboro, is Co-Founder of Maine Outdoor School, L3C, and is a Registered Maine Guide and Carpenter. He is passionate about fishing, cooking, and making things with his hands. He has both an MBA in Sustainability and an MS focused in Environmental Education. Joe can be reached by emailing [email protected]

Hazel Stark lives in Gouldsboro, is Co-Founder and Naturalist Educator at Maine Outdoor School, L3C, and is a Registered Maine Guide. She loves taking a closer look at nature through the lens of her camera, napping in beds of moss, and taking hikes to high points to see what being tall is all about. She has an MS in Resource Management and Conservation and is a lifelong Maine outdoorswoman. Hazel can be reached by emailing [email protected]

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