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  • Report from Friendly Soccer Match Between TownPress and Pressville

    Report from Friendly Soccer Match Between TownPress and Pressville

    Football refers to a number of sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball with the foot to score a goal. Unqualified, the word football is understood to refer to whichever form of football is the most popular in the regional context in which the word appears: association football (also known as soccer) in the United Kingdom and most of the non-English speaking world; gridiron football (specifically American football or Canadian football) in the United States and Canada; Australian rules football or rugby league in different areas of Australia; Gaelic football in Ireland; and rugby football (specifically rugby union) in New Zealand. These different variations of football are known as football codes.

    Various forms of football can be identified in history, often as popular peasant games. Contemporary codes of football can be traced back to the codification of these games at English public schools in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The influence and power of the British Empire allowed these rules of football to spread to areas of British influence outside of the directly controlled Empire, though by the end of the nineteenth century, distinct regional codes were already developing: Gaelic Football, for example, deliberately incorporated the rules of local traditional football games in order to maintain their heritage. In 1888, The Football League was founded in England, becoming the first of many professional football competitions. During the twentieth century, several of the various kinds of football grew to become among the most popular team sports in the world.

  • New Housing Complex in TownPress Nearly Complete

    New Housing Complex in TownPress Nearly Complete

    The process often starts with a planning stage in which plans are prepared by an architect and approved by the client and any regulatory authority. Then the site is cleared, foundations are laid and trenches for connection to services such as sewerage, water, and electricity are established. If the house is wooden-framed, a framework is constructed to support the boards, siding and roof. If the house is of brick construction, then courses of bricks are laid to construct the walls. Floors, beams and internal walls are constructed as the building develops, with plumbing and wiring for water and electricity being installed as appropriate. Once the main structure is complete, internal fitting with lights and other fitments is done, and the house may be decorated and furnished with furniture, cupboards, carpets, curtains and other fittings.

    Some have criticized the house-building industry. Mass house-builders can be risk averse, preferring cost-efficient building methods rather than adopting new technologies for improved building performance. Traditional vernacular building methods that suit local conditions and climates can be dispensed with in favour of a generic ‘cookie cutter’ housing type.

  • This Year’s Summer Rock Festival Draws More Than 1000 Fans

    This Year’s Summer Rock Festival Draws More Than 1000 Fans

    A rock festival, considered synonymous with pop festival, is considered to be a large-scale rock music concert, featuring multiple acts performing an often diverse range of popular music including rock, pop, folk, electronic, and related genres. As originally conceived in the mid to late 1960s, rock festivals were held outdoors, often in open rural areas or open-air sports arenas, fairgrounds and parks, typically lasted two or more days, featured long rosters of musical performers, and attracted very large crowds – sometimes numbering several hundred thousand people.

  • 10 Things You Didn’t Know About our Town

    10 Things You Didn’t Know About our Town

    One of the New Hampshire Grants, Middlebury was chartered by Colonial Governor Benning Wentworth on November 2, 1761. The name “Middlebury” came from its location between the towns of Salisbury and New Haven. It was awarded to John Evarts and 62 others. The French and Indian Wars ended in 1763, and the first settlers arrived in 1766. John Chipman was the first to clear his land, Lot Seven. During the Revolutionary War, much of the town was burned in Carleton’s Raid on November 6, 1778. After the war concluded in 1783, settlers returned to rebuild homes, clear forests and establish farms. Principal crops were grains and hay.

    Landowners vied for the lucrative honor of having the village center grow on their properties. A survey dispute with Salisbury led to the forfeiture of Gamaliel Painter’s farm to that town, and his transition from farming to developing Middlebury Village near his and Abisha Washburn’s mill, together with other mills that surrounded the Otter Creek falls. Industries would include a cotton factory, sawmill, gristmill, pail factory, paper mill, woolen factory, iron foundry, and marble quarry. The Rutland & Burlington Railroad first arrived on September 1, 1849. Around 1830, Middlebury was the second largest town in Vermont.

    Middlebury College, one of the United States’ elite liberal arts colleges, was founded here in 1800. It is a member of the NESCAC. In the summer, the town plays host to the annual Middlebury College Language Schools, as well as the college’s Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the oldest surviving conference of its kind in the nation.

  • Report From Financial Meeting

    Report From Financial Meeting

    A town meeting is a form of direct democratic rule, used primarily in portions of the United States – principally in New England – since the 17th century, in which most or all the members of a community come together to legislate policy and budgets for local government.

    The term has more recently been expanded to cover public meetings that draw people in a geographic area to discuss issues but not vote on any legislative or administrative action. Notably, the term is commonly used by politicians in the United States to describe forums at which voters can ask questions.

  • TownPress Half Marathon Draws over 500 Runners

    TownPress Half Marathon Draws over 500 Runners

    A half marathon is a road running event of 21.0975 kilometres (13.1094 mi). It is half the distance of a marathon and usually run on roads. Participation in half marathons has grown steadily. One of the main reasons for this is that it is a challenging distance, but does not require the same level of training that a marathon does. In 2008, Running USA reported that the half marathon is the fastest growing type of race. A 2010 article by Universal Sports echoed the growing popularity of the distance. It is common for a half marathon event to be held concurrently with a marathon, using almost the same course with a late start, an early finish or shortcuts. The half marathon is also known as a 21K, 21.1K or 13.1 miles, although these values are rounded and not formally correct.

  • Town Cinema to Screen Indie Movies

    Town Cinema to Screen Indie Movies

    An independent film is a film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced and/or distributed by subsidiaries of major film studios.

    Independent films are sometimes distinguishable by their content and style and the way in which the filmmakers’ personal artistic vision is realized. Usually, but not always, independent films are made with considerably lower film budgets than major studio films.

    Generally, the marketing of independent films is characterized by limited release, but can also have major marketing campaigns and a wide release. Independent films are often screened at local, national, or international film festivals before distribution (theatrical and/or retail release). An independent film production can rival a mainstream film production if it has the necessary funding and distribution.

  • Holiday Reading: 10 Best Summer Books

    Holiday Reading: 10 Best Summer Books

    Writing is a system of linguistic symbols permitting one to transmit and conserve information. Writing appears to have developed between the 7th millennium BC and the 4th millennium BC, first in the form of early mnemonic symbols which became a system of ideograms or pictographs through simplification. The oldest known forms of writing were thus primarily logographic in nature. Later syllabic and alphabetic or segmental writing emerged.

    The book is also linked to the desire of humans to create lasting records. Stones may be the most ancient form of writing with wood being the first medium to take the guise of a book. The words biblos and liber first meant “fibre inside of a tree”. In Chinese, the character that means book is an image of a tablet of bamboo. Wooden tablets (Rongorongo) were also made on Easter Island.

    Silk, in China, was also a base for writing. Writing was done with brushes. Many other materials were used as bases: bone, bronze, pottery, shell, etc. In India, for example, dried palm tree leaves were used; in Mesoamerica another type of plant, Amate. Any material which will hold and transmit text is a candidate for use in bookmaking.

  • Travel Tip: Top 20 Most Visited National Parks

    Travel Tip: Top 20 Most Visited National Parks

    A national park is a park in use for conservation purposes. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual nations designate their own national parks differently, there is a common idea: the conservation of wild nature for posterity and as a symbol of national pride. An international organization, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and its World Commission on Protected Areas, has defined “National Park” as its Category II type of protected areas.

    While this type of national park had been proposed previously, the United States established the first “public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people”, Yellowstone National Park, in 1872. Although Yellowstone was not officially termed a “national park” in its establishing law, it was always termed such in practice and is widely held to be the first and oldest national park in the world. Some would say that the first official national park to be designated as such at its creation was Mackinac Island, legislated in 1875. Australia’s Royal National Park, established in 1879, was the world’s third official national park. In 1895 ownership of Mackinac Island was transferred to the State of Michigan as a state park and national park status was consequently lost. As a result Australia’s Royal National Park is by some considerations the second oldest national park now in existence.

  • Municipal Elections Results

    Local elections vary widely across jurisdictions. In electoral system that roughly follow the Westminster model, a terminology has evolved with roles such as Mayor or Warden to describe the executive of a city, town or region, although the actual means of elections vary. Political careers are often made at the local level: Boris Yeltsin, for instance, as the top official in Moscow, was able to prove his effectiveness and eventually take the job of President of Russia after the collapse of the USSR. When he fought his first contested local election, he demonstrated a willingness to put his policies to the ballot.

    In the U.S. there is more focus on electoral reform, including a call for instant-runoff voting to be used to select all major executives. This is thought to make it possible for small parties to compete, as in the case of Matt Gonzalez in San Francisco, California. Such a ballot reform is often a complement to moving towards a “strong mayor” system, such as in Baltimore, Maryland or as recently advocated in Oakland, California.