The North Carolina Arts Council is accepting applications for two paid community arts internships with local arts councils or arts centers through Monday, May 2.
This opportunity provides two individuals with a three-month intensive internship with one of N.C.’s local arts councils or arts centers under the supervision of the executive director or staff member who will help the intern design a training program within the spectrum of community arts administration.
Interns receive a $5,000 stipend to cover living expenses. The intensive, supervised program is designed to introduce community arts administration skills including learning organizational structure, planning, fundraising, grant writing, financial management, marketing, programming, publicity and promotion, and interagency relationships.
About 66 percent of internship recipients have eventually been placed in full-time arts positions.
“This type of work experience cannot be replicated in the classroom,” says Janie Wilson, the arts in communities director for the N.C. Arts Council.
The location of the internship is based in part on interns’ interests and the nature of the operations of the host organizations. Applicants must have at least a bachelor’s degree and demonstrate a strong interest in a career in community arts administration.
Internships are scheduled for a three-month period starting September 1, 2011, and ending Dec.1. Click here for guidelines.
To apply, send a resume, cover letter, application and narratives and a list of three references by Monday, May 2. Download an application at here.
See what ended up on The News of Orange County's cutting room floor.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Submit your poems!
The Poetry Council of NC’s annual poetry contests are open for submission until May 31. PCNC sponsors annual poetry contests in nine different categories, including best NC book of poetry, free verse, traditional form, humorous verse and performance poetry. There are also separate contests for NC elementary, middle school and high school students.
In most categories, first-, second- and third-place winners are named as well as three honorable mentions. Prizes range from $15 to $100. Winning poems are published in the Council’s annual anthology Bay Leaves and on the Council’s website, and all winning authors are invited to read their winning poems at Poetry Day, held this year on Oct. 1 at Catawba College in Salisbury.
To be considered, poems must be no more than 40 lines, previously unpublished and not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Entry fees are $5 for individual poem contests and $10 for the book contest, but there are no entry fees for the student competitions. Performance poems are limited to two minutes and will be performed and judged live at Poetry Day. Complete details and guidelines are available at http://poetrycouncilofnc.wordpress.com/ or from Ed Cockrell at 2906 Gait Way, Chapel Hill, NC 27516, (919) 967-5834.
In most categories, first-, second- and third-place winners are named as well as three honorable mentions. Prizes range from $15 to $100. Winning poems are published in the Council’s annual anthology Bay Leaves and on the Council’s website, and all winning authors are invited to read their winning poems at Poetry Day, held this year on Oct. 1 at Catawba College in Salisbury.
To be considered, poems must be no more than 40 lines, previously unpublished and not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Entry fees are $5 for individual poem contests and $10 for the book contest, but there are no entry fees for the student competitions. Performance poems are limited to two minutes and will be performed and judged live at Poetry Day. Complete details and guidelines are available at http://poetrycouncilofnc.wordpress.com/ or from Ed Cockrell at 2906 Gait Way, Chapel Hill, NC 27516, (919) 967-5834.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
They like it cute, they like it pink
Ooh La La Pet Spa opened a new location in Hillsborough at 141 N. Scotswood Blvd. Priding itself on quality care and creating a positive experience for the pets, Ooh La La offers not just the basic grooming, bath and nail trim but also nail polish—including glow-in-the-dark—and hair dye. Ooh La La operates by appointment, though walk-ins are welcome before 1:30 p.m. if space allows. Senior and regular customer discounts are available. For more information, see hte March 30 edition of the News of Orange.
Protect yourself from ticks!
Ticks are everywhere in North Carolina, from the deepest, densest woods to even right downtown. And though tick-borne illnesses can be scary things, preventing them is quick and easy.
Tick season stretches from early March to October, though some ticks remain active during the winter months as well. The easiest protection is to wear long clothes, tucking shirt into pants and pants into socks, and performing tick checks.
Even if you do get a tick on you, the important thing is to remove it correctly and as soon as possible. Don't touch it or disturb it for danger of releasing more infected saliva. Use a pair of fine-nosed tweezers to gently grab the tick right by the skin and pull out the direction it went in. Then tape it to a notecard so it can be identified in case of an infection.
If you do get a tick bite, many times nothing happens. If you start getting flu-like symptoms, however—especially if it's not flu season and there's nothing going around—see your doctor and inform them of the tick bite.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
State officials: don’t burn outdoors today or tomorrow in North Carolina
People should not burn outdoors today and tomorrow because high winds and dry air have increased the risk of wildfires in North Carolina, according to the National Weather Service and the N.C. Division of Forest Resources.
The agencies have issued red flag warnings or fire danger statements for most of the state for Wednesday.
The more severe of the two statements, a red flag warning, means that critical fire weather conditions are occurring or will occur shortly. Strong winds, low relative humidity and warm temperatures will create high fire growth potential. Parts of North Carolina will have sustained winds between 15 mph and 35 mph, with possible gusts more than 50 mph.
Instead of burning outdoors, people should compost their brush piles or leave them until the state receives a soaking rainfall, state officials said Wednesday.
For wildfire information, please view the N.C. Division of Forest Resources’ website.
For more information, contact Brian Haines, public information officer with the N.C. Division of Forest Resources, at (919) 857-4828.
The agencies have issued red flag warnings or fire danger statements for most of the state for Wednesday.
The more severe of the two statements, a red flag warning, means that critical fire weather conditions are occurring or will occur shortly. Strong winds, low relative humidity and warm temperatures will create high fire growth potential. Parts of North Carolina will have sustained winds between 15 mph and 35 mph, with possible gusts more than 50 mph.
Instead of burning outdoors, people should compost their brush piles or leave them until the state receives a soaking rainfall, state officials said Wednesday.
For wildfire information, please view the N.C. Division of Forest Resources’ website.
For more information, contact Brian Haines, public information officer with the N.C. Division of Forest Resources, at (919) 857-4828.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Dispose of prescription drugs properly
Prescription Drug Take Back will be held Thursday, March 24, from 3 to 6 p.m. at Kerr Drug on U.S. 70 in Hillsborough.
The Hillsborough Police Dept. and the Orange County Sheriff’s Office are sponsoring a drug drop off! Bring unused and expired medicines to this special collection where law enforcement can dispose of them properly. Operation Medicine Drop is a program administered by Safe Kids North Carolina and the N.C. Department of Insurance.
The Hillsborough Police Dept. and the Orange County Sheriff’s Office are sponsoring a drug drop off! Bring unused and expired medicines to this special collection where law enforcement can dispose of them properly. Operation Medicine Drop is a program administered by Safe Kids North Carolina and the N.C. Department of Insurance.
Monday, March 21, 2011
New Post Office celebrates grand opening
A new Post Office in Hillsborough celebrated its grand opening Thursday, March 10, and its owners declared themselves “ready to serve the Hillsborough and Chapel Hill customers in grand fashion.”
Eagles Chief Operating Officer Kuntal Gandhi and Hillsborough Postmaster Tom Pollard presided over a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Contract Postal Unit at Eagles Convenience Store #5, 620 Hampton Pointe in Hillsborough. The Eagles CPU is open six days a week—Monday through Friday— from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. It is one of 21 CPUs in the Triangle Area, all serving as convenient alternatives to traditional Post Offices.
“This office will help to increase convenience and access to postal services for customers unable to travel to the main Post Office,” said Pollard, who oversees the Eagles CPU. “A full line of postal products and services are available at the new CPU including postage stamps, Express Mail® service, Priority Mail® service, special services, packaging products, and much more. We are very excited for the residents of Hillsborough and the community at large.”
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Bus service to come to Hillsborough
The Hillsborough Town Board approved an agreement with the Orange County Board of Commissioners for a circulator bus service through the town. The free bus would operate for four hours in the morning and four hours in the afternoon—a schedule set to maximize connectivity with Triangle Transit Authority's 420 route—and currently has 16 stops, one of which lies outside the town limit. Planning Director Margaret Hauth said that the route will undergo some fine-tuning once the service has begun and the public can give some feedback on additional routes, convenience of times etc.
The bus service will be funded through a three-year Federal Transit Administration Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality grant, which funds 80 percent of the cost each year and requires and 20 percent local match. The North Carolina Department of Transportation will supply that local portion for the first year, and Hillsborough will pick up the funding for the second and third years.
The service should start sometime in late spring early summer, hopefully in May.
Preliminary stop schedule for the Hillsborough circulator bus route
Note: these stops are subject to change as the bus route is tweaked over the next few months.
Stop 1—Fairview Park
Stop 2—Faucette Mill/Cornelius streets
Stop 3—Whitted Forest Apartments
Stop 4—West Hill Avenue (Bennett Mobile Home Parkes)
Stop 5—West King Street (Village Diner)
Stop 6—West King/N. Hassell streets (near the Recreation Department)
Stop 7—Library
Stop 8— Department of Social Services Hillsborough Commons
Stop 9—Patriots Pointe Apartments
Stop 10—Gateway Village Apartments
Stop 11—Oakdale Village
Stop 12—Orange County Durham Technical Community College
Stop 13—Hampton Pointe
Stop 14—Senior Center/Sportsplex
Stop 15—Orange County Courthouse
Stop 16—North Hills Plaza
A note from state Senator Ellia Kinnaird
Dear Friends,
Another week at the legislature, another week of divisive issues.
North Carolina, along with one other state, has protected its beaches by not allowing hardened structures—called terminal groins—along its coast. The reason for the policy is that on the other side of the groin, the sand is scoured away, leaving the next beach with a receding shoreline and a severe deficit of sand, thus requiring re-nourishment of the lost sand, an expensive proposition.
Not even all the coastal communities agreed on the need and usefulness of groins. One town that would be affected, Sunset Beach, passed a resolution against it. But many towns and homeowners were in favor, as some condominiums are about to fall in the sea. Orrin Pilkey and John Hood of the John Locke Foundation were both opposed, leading some to speculate that the end of the world was, indeed, upon us. The vote was divided, not along partisan lines, but more geographical. The final vote was put off until Monday so those who don’t want the taxpayers to pick up the bill for beach re-nourishment could work out a deal with the bill’s sponsors. The sponsors had added a provision that the communities installing the groins would put up a bond to cover the costs if it ran over or if another community sued. But that wasn’t enough for those concerned the taxpayers will end up picking up the tab.
In another partisan, but esoteric, bill, the Senate voted to not conform our tax law to the federal tax changes. President Obama gave a tax break to small business owners by allowing them to accelerate their expenses in the first year. But this would be a loss to our budget of potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. The Republican sponsor was not too happy, wanting to give a tax break to the small business owners but realized that would put an even larger hole in the budget. (Tax law, although I took it in law school, is way beyond me, but I think this is a reasonable explanation.)
A moratorium on annexation by cities passed easily. I voted against it because cities have grown in an orderly fashion in North Carolina with our current statutes. There has been a need for updating and changes that people have urged for years, but a complete moratorium, even with a sunset to revisit the issue, could last for many years, thwarting meaningful growth of our cities. In Virginia, their moratorium that passed 28 years ago is still in effect. A comparison of the vitality of our cities such as Charlotte and Richmond, show that Virginia’s cities have not thrived, while ours have. Some cities even have “doughnut holes” right in the middle of the city, unannexed areas that are still in the county and don’t have city services.
But of course the big news was Gov. Perdue’s veto of Senate Bill 13 requiring North Carolina to join other states in suing to declare the individual mandate for insurance unconstitutional. The Attorney General, Roy Cooper, advised the Governor that states cannot nullify federal actions based on the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. The House Democrats stuck together to uphold the veto. However, in the Senate, we could not override the Governor’s veto the bill requiring her to cut this year’s spending in the ways they dictated. Interestingly, after the veto, the Republicans said they would not try to override her veto and instead passed a bill requiring an amount to be cut, but giving her discretion of how to find the money. It was a complete surprise when they brought up the veto override, since we passed that bill and it is pending in the House.
In another sobering presentation in a year of sobering news, the Employment Security Commission announced we owe the federal government a startling $2, 631,866,556.00. Yes, that is two and a half billion plus. The reason is not only the economic meltdown resulting in high unemployment (but remember the bankers who caused it got $10 million bonuses) but also during the boom years of the 90's, employers asked for a reduction in their contribution because they had a nice surplus in the Trust Fund. Alas, here we are, grasshoppers instead of ants (for those of you who remember your Aesop’s Fables, the ants stored up for the winter while the grasshoppers played all summer.) So now we are hoping the feds will rescue us and we will only need to pay back the staggering interest owed of $80- $100 million dollars.
Then there is the matter of tax refunds owed to our citizens. Since we are broke, the governor is planning to take available monies to pay them back and then pay back the funds after April 15th when the revenues start coming in. That seemed to have sparked the latest skirmish between the Republicans and Democrats in the Senate to revive Senate Bill 13 on who decides and where the monies are to come from.
Ellie
Another week at the legislature, another week of divisive issues.
North Carolina, along with one other state, has protected its beaches by not allowing hardened structures—called terminal groins—along its coast. The reason for the policy is that on the other side of the groin, the sand is scoured away, leaving the next beach with a receding shoreline and a severe deficit of sand, thus requiring re-nourishment of the lost sand, an expensive proposition.
Not even all the coastal communities agreed on the need and usefulness of groins. One town that would be affected, Sunset Beach, passed a resolution against it. But many towns and homeowners were in favor, as some condominiums are about to fall in the sea. Orrin Pilkey and John Hood of the John Locke Foundation were both opposed, leading some to speculate that the end of the world was, indeed, upon us. The vote was divided, not along partisan lines, but more geographical. The final vote was put off until Monday so those who don’t want the taxpayers to pick up the bill for beach re-nourishment could work out a deal with the bill’s sponsors. The sponsors had added a provision that the communities installing the groins would put up a bond to cover the costs if it ran over or if another community sued. But that wasn’t enough for those concerned the taxpayers will end up picking up the tab.
In another partisan, but esoteric, bill, the Senate voted to not conform our tax law to the federal tax changes. President Obama gave a tax break to small business owners by allowing them to accelerate their expenses in the first year. But this would be a loss to our budget of potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. The Republican sponsor was not too happy, wanting to give a tax break to the small business owners but realized that would put an even larger hole in the budget. (Tax law, although I took it in law school, is way beyond me, but I think this is a reasonable explanation.)
A moratorium on annexation by cities passed easily. I voted against it because cities have grown in an orderly fashion in North Carolina with our current statutes. There has been a need for updating and changes that people have urged for years, but a complete moratorium, even with a sunset to revisit the issue, could last for many years, thwarting meaningful growth of our cities. In Virginia, their moratorium that passed 28 years ago is still in effect. A comparison of the vitality of our cities such as Charlotte and Richmond, show that Virginia’s cities have not thrived, while ours have. Some cities even have “doughnut holes” right in the middle of the city, unannexed areas that are still in the county and don’t have city services.
But of course the big news was Gov. Perdue’s veto of Senate Bill 13 requiring North Carolina to join other states in suing to declare the individual mandate for insurance unconstitutional. The Attorney General, Roy Cooper, advised the Governor that states cannot nullify federal actions based on the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. The House Democrats stuck together to uphold the veto. However, in the Senate, we could not override the Governor’s veto the bill requiring her to cut this year’s spending in the ways they dictated. Interestingly, after the veto, the Republicans said they would not try to override her veto and instead passed a bill requiring an amount to be cut, but giving her discretion of how to find the money. It was a complete surprise when they brought up the veto override, since we passed that bill and it is pending in the House.
In another sobering presentation in a year of sobering news, the Employment Security Commission announced we owe the federal government a startling $2, 631,866,556.00. Yes, that is two and a half billion plus. The reason is not only the economic meltdown resulting in high unemployment (but remember the bankers who caused it got $10 million bonuses) but also during the boom years of the 90's, employers asked for a reduction in their contribution because they had a nice surplus in the Trust Fund. Alas, here we are, grasshoppers instead of ants (for those of you who remember your Aesop’s Fables, the ants stored up for the winter while the grasshoppers played all summer.) So now we are hoping the feds will rescue us and we will only need to pay back the staggering interest owed of $80- $100 million dollars.
Then there is the matter of tax refunds owed to our citizens. Since we are broke, the governor is planning to take available monies to pay them back and then pay back the funds after April 15th when the revenues start coming in. That seemed to have sparked the latest skirmish between the Republicans and Democrats in the Senate to revive Senate Bill 13 on who decides and where the monies are to come from.
Ellie
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